


Keeping Score

by WinterDusk



Series: Have Tesseract, Will Travel [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Female!Loki - Freeform, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Multiverse Travel, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Reference to Torture, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 11:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19150213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterDusk/pseuds/WinterDusk
Summary: Terrible things are coming.  Luckily for the people concerned, Loki’s fairly certain he can fix it with a single spell.  Unfortunately, at least for Thor, the last time anyone saw that spell was in Asgard’s library.  What harm can a little multiverse-and-time-travel really do?Minor warnings for Endgame spoilers, off screen torture and gender identity.





	Keeping Score

**Author's Note:**

> Somewhat of a far-future follow-on from “The Shining Sun”, although it probably stands well enough alone.

“First off,” Loki’s voice is clear and calm, “It’s not time travel. It’s multiverse hopping.”

“Right,” Rocket draws out the word, sceptical. “Because from where I’m sitting, you’re talking about going back in time to get something that no longer exists. Which is time travel.”

“But we’re not traveling in _this_ universe.” Loki waves his hand vaguely. “We’re going to cross over to one of the _other_ multiverses. One that got split off centuries ago, by someone pratting around with infinity stones.”

“And this is better, how?”

“Well,” Loki says with that small dip of his head that means that _maybe, just maybe_ , someone might have found a slight snag in the plan, “If nothing else, it means that if we fluff this up, it’s someone else’s universe we destroy.”

Thor’s already bad feeling about the plan gets worse.

#

The thing is, it’s meant to be a plan to make things better. By ‘things’, Thor actually means the twelve billion beings currently at risk of annihilation from plague. Which is a worthy cause, in truth, for all that he’s leery of the potential for alternative multiverse destruction.

It’s not the only thing that leaves him leery of the plan.

No. That would be the whole ‘let’s go to Asgard’ thing. Let’s see mother and father; see the golden city; see everyone we failed.

“Maybe there resides a copy of the manuscript elsewhere?” He’s in the small cabin he shares with Loki, safe behind closed doors. Surely it doesn’t matter if it sounds as though he’s begging? “Vanaheim, maybe? Or Alfheim?”

Loki gives him _that_ look. “Asgard was the center of power of the Nine Realms for a reason.” Which is true. For Asgard was a home of beauty; her warriors dedicated to her defence in all circumstances; her craftspeople famed; her bards of repute beyond compare. Somehow Thor just _knows_ that this is not what Loki is implying.

“Yes?” He asks, tentatively.

“Oh, _come on_ , Thor. It’s not like Odin isn’t a complete A-hole. You seriously think he just leaves objects of power lying about where others can find them?” Thor, thinking of Hela alone and plotting her vengeance in Helheim, thinks that that’s _exactly_ what their father did.

That Loki refers to their father as Odin is something Thor ignores. As he does, too, Loki’s slip in referring to their father as living. It’s better to neglect than correct, for in correcting Thor will see the devastation in Loki’s eyes when he remembers that father’s gone and mother before that; that Loki will never again meet her this side of Valhalla.

Except, if they take this quest, then they just might.

“Just trust me,” Loki says; it’s turning into his new favourite phrase and gives Thor another thing to ignore. This time, irony. “There is no such spell in any realm other than Asgard. So, unless you want to go picking through the rubble on the off chance…”

Sometimes Loki skewers Thor by mistake, and sometimes by intent. Thor’s fairly certain it is by intent this time; though he doubts his brother realizes just how deeply those words have cut.

There is no way that Thor is returning to Asgard; he’s not strong enough to survive seeing that asteroid field twice.

#

When Thor was… when he had given up. Back then. He’d had a preference for gaming. Korg and Miek were the best of companions, truly, and Thor had enjoyed their quests. They could sit all day, eternally the same, engaging in heroic expeditions where no one in the real world died. Thor was good at quests, even in such imaginary realms. He has the score to show it. _Might_ have the score to show it. It’s possible that… well, it’s been a while since he played and surely no one online remembers him now?

But that little score; that had made it _so easy_ to know when he was winning.

Saving twelve billion lives is also a definite mark of winning. Hence it’s a quest he should surely accept?

Standing amidst the jury-rigged chaos in the Milano’s loading bay, Thor wonders whether it’s too late to back out. Maybe there are games he can win here, instead? Something from Groot’s tablet, perhaps? He strokes the planes of Stormbreaker, fingers passing over the contrasting blade and shaft; one warming to his touch, the other not.

Or maybe he can return to Sakaar? Lead another rebellion? A _better_ rebellion. Surely freeing billions of lives is better than _maybe_ saving billions?

“Hush.” A cool touch stills his restless movement; Loki’s hand on his.

It’s the blind instinct of a child leaning into its parent that has Thor swaying closer to his brother. A weakness Thor despises in himself, even as he’s soothed by the hasty kiss Loki presses to his temple. The easy lies Loki tells. “It’s not going to be for long. Only a few days.”

_Only a few days, if they want to make it back._ Thor might be foolish, too slow to have done anything other than fall hopelessly bemused by Rocket and Loki as they first devised and later constructed their insane contraption, but he’s sense enough to know that return’s no certain thing. That even arrival is open to a considerable margin of error.

He looks over at his brother, currently masquerading as his sister. No, not his sister. Not Hela. _Never_ Hela. Just that other form Loki sometimes wears, though somewhat modified for this endeavour.

He looks, and acknowledges that it’s not like a failure to return to the main timeline would matter much. So long as he’s with Loki...

For a few jittery pulse-beats, memories of that town by the sea try to intrude. Thoughts of duty and obligation; memories that leave Thor breathless and desperate, aching for reassurance even as he wishes he could just turn it all off. Could carve caring for his people out of his soul.

Could stop minding that he’s failing them.

Thor closes his eyes. Tells himself that he just has to survive a few more days. Just skim over the coming interval paying minimal heed to the events around him until it’s all over. All better.

Because then he’ll have helped saved twelve billion people. That has to count. Right?

Just like winning a game.

He hates this waiting around.

Midgard’s game had a time to wait while starting. A time to wait and a loading screen. Currently Thor’s looking at a screen that is almost, but not quite, entirely different in every aspect. Most fundamental of those differences being that the ‘game’ Thor’s about to engage in will be anything but imaginary. He’ll be saving people. It’s definitely better. Right?

“Are you _sure_ you should be going?” Rocket, usually rage-fuelled and too-fast, is surprisingly still; paws halted on his make-shift science-Seidr integrating console. The Asgardian runes mixed in with the alien script is jarring, but not to the same degree as the intense look on Rocket’s face.

Sometimes Thor really doesn’t understand his friends. “Who else if not me?” Rocket’s eyes slide over to female-and-redhead-Loki, standing just besides Thor and adjusting the paired spell-braids – invisibility and illusion – around her wrist; twins of the ones Thor’s wearing.

Where Thor wears them, they itch slightly; Loki’s Seidr not-exactly fighting with Thor’s own as it works to disguise him. He longs to snap the bands and not creep about, but Loki would never let him live that down. Loki keeps track of such slights to his skills.

“Thor? Are you listening?” Rocket breaks into his reverie.

Thor searches for the words to say. Finds them. “I would be a coward indeed to quail before something my brother must tackle.”

It’s only when Loki’s lips draw into a terse frown that Thor remembers to consider his words as though evaluating them for an insult they must _surely_ contain. He sighs; turns to face Loki. “You _know_ that’s not what I mean.” And maybe he should apologize, or clarify that what he _meant_ was that, to abandon a companion, thus leaving them to quest alone… Well, that’s hardly… It’s not who he _should be_.

But he’s tired and, yes, worried. Now Loki’s looking for insult where none is intended, which she must know is ridiculous.

Thor is too tired to either fight or tease her. Reassurance is utterly beyond him.

Instead he returns to Rocket and smiles. Or tries to, at any rate. “All will be well.”

Rocket’s ears are near flat against his head but he nods. “If you say so. Just no more weepy scenes with mother dearest, okay?” Loki, always attentive to weakness as a shark to blood, whips her head around. But Rocket, doubtless not wanting to wait through that particular sibling squabble, says, “On the count of three,” and Thor, knowing exactly how Rocket responds in times like this, doesn’t waste time before donning his sunglasses. “Three.”

As Rocket hits the red button, Thor drives Stormbreaker down.

#

Landing is rough. Loki and Rocket’s botched Bifrost-tesseract-control-device is evidently somewhat lacking in control. Thor staggers forward for a few quick steps, hand reaching out to steady Loki. Loki, needless to say, flows out of his grip as easily as a cat might.

Then they look around, mystified.

Loki, when proposing this plan, had said she’d have it all covered. They’d materialize just outside Heimdall’s observatory under a woven illusion of invisibility. Once there, they’d enter the city, apparently as travellers come, in the normal manner of things, from across the rainbow bridge. Loki would head to the library; Thor would cover her back. They’d both wear illusions to disguise their identities. In this instance, as redheaded siblings among other alterations.

Loki hadn’t offered a persona that minimized Thor’s girth. And while Thor suspects this is more to do with problems related to by-passers running into him; confused by the mismatch between their perception and the reality of his dimensions; he doesn’t need to pick at the decision. Not when it could mean that Loki… That Loki doesn’t… That maybe there’s _someone_ out there who doesn’t look on Thor with scorn.

Implicit in Loki’s plan is the knowledge that they’d arrive somewhere quiet and have to appear subtly.

So it’s somewhat of a surprise to realise they are in the midst of a crowd.

In that instant Thor can see Hela, striding across the bridge while the frightened of Asgard run before her. His breath draws ragged to his own ears until he could swear it’s the snarling of Fenrir.

“Hey,” Loki’s hand is on his arm. “Not that. Not here.”

It’s Loki’s hand, but not Loki’s face. Rather a slender woman with reddish hair and snarling lips is close into Thor’s personal space. For a moment Thor is frantic, searching, because there’s nothing familiar of Loki and too much familiar of a dead realm, and then he sees her eyes; sees Loki’s eyes.

His breathing starts to steady again.

He raises his own hand to cover Loki’s. Then lets his head bow forwards until it’s resting against Loki’s brow. His hair, a thousand rusty braids, tumble between the two of them and reality; their own secret space.

“Who are all of these people?” He whispers.

“Who cares?” Loki’s still got her mind on their task. “They’re brilliant cover; don’t blow it.”

Heimdall won’t be fooled, Thor wants to say. But then, maybe he will be. Loki’s illusions have confused the Master of the Gates before; maybe amidst this influx even Heimdall won’t notice another two forms.

Still, as they start to walk along the bifrost, Thor keeping Loki’s hand in his own regardless of the irritated glances his brother throws, it’s hard to miss the fact that they don’t, in actual fact, blend in. For the newcomers are all much of a muchness, with shorter frames and slighter figures. Their hair is bright with the hues of a winter river and their bodies are, without exception, clad in long indigo robes.

There is a tension to the group; a darkness in their eyes. It calls out to Thor, as one grieving soul to another. Surely he’s projecting his own loss?

#

Asgard has a good many libraries; mostly public. Loki, naturally, wants to access but one; the most heavily guarded.

Loki’s currently working at this task; eyes closed and expression distracted as she raises her high hands, wisps of falling Seidr from them.

In the library’s wall, barely an arm’s-reach up, there’s a window. That would have been Thor’s preferred entrance point; a loud smash and grab. But Loki’s got this covered and-

“Stop complaining!” Loki snaps.

“I’m not complaining.” He’s not. He’s just… Everything here is… It’s hard to breathe; hard to hold his hands steady. When Loki linked the illusion magic to Thor, he must have done something wrong. It can’t be a panic attack, not over this; it’s not as though the Norn’s-doomed library _means_ anything to Thor!

“You definitely are. I can _feel_ you. So stop it! It’s not like _I_ put the book in there.”

But it’s Loki who _knew_ the book was there. If he’d either not known or not said anything…? If Thor had been able to look out, over the sick people of the Ysidry planet, all twelve billion of them, and _know_ that he had no help for them? Had been permitted to stand aside, to return to the Milano, to let time and other beings do what they could to resolve the issue?

“Oh for…! What’s with the long face? Everything’s perfectly under control. I’ve been breaking in here since we were children.” Which would explain more than one thing about inappropriate statements child-Loki had made. “An hour. Two at the most, and we’ll be gone.”

Two hours? Thor leans forward; bracing his hands against his knees. Tries to draw a deep breath. Surely he can hold it together for two hours?

A pair of shadows fall over them. “What _exactly_ ,” says a guard, “is going on here?”

Thor simply hates Loki’s definition of ‘under control’.

#

If Thor were a more decisive man, he’d have made a break for it. Instead he makes the mistake of looking at Loki. A Loki who seems more resigned than startled, as though badly acting in an event where all is going according to some nefarious plan. Thor really should have expected something like this. He wishes he could simultaneously rage at her and collapse weeping at her feet; asking why she’d ever choose to put him through this.

Instead of such action, Thor hands Stormbreaker over to one of the guards. His heart is left empty in her absence; his hands ache. She looks lonely in a stranger’s grip.

As for being led into the throne room; that shouldn’t be in any plan Thor’s part of.

He nearly _does_ try to run as they approach the immense doors and it finally dawns on Thor exactly where it is that they’re headed. Because, if there is one place that he cannot bear to be, if there is one set of presences that he’s unable to stand an encounter with…

But there’s no choice now, not without hurting the guards. Thor really doesn’t want to hurt the guards. So _many_ Asgardians are dead that-

Except, that’s not true here. Not yet. What if Thor told everyone about-

But then the timeline would fracture, again, and-

But would that really be so bad? Maybe if-

But Rocket had said-

Thor feels dizzy. Light seems to catch at him strangely, building up a dissonance between his real and fake eyes. He wishes his sunglasses darker.

They aren’t, so Thor raises a hand to his face, tugging his hair forward, hoping to block it all out.

The hair that he touches is the wrong colour; all treachery and lies. He has no idea where he’s hiding underneath it all. He starts to shake. Keeps walking, regardless, because he’d promised Loki this time; her hour or two. That, and because there are twelve billion lives to save if he can just play his part.

He’s failed too many times to do so again.

They enter the throne room. Loki’s giving Thor concerned glances; they sit ill upon this new face she’s taken. The guards accompanying Thor seem to concur with Loki, for when they’re taken – not immediately before Odin, but rather, into the crowd of common supplicants – the junior of the pair moves to chaise a visiting diplomat from one of the few chairs.

“I’m fine.” Thor says. Tries to say.

The diplomat, a finely clad being in robes of the deepest blue, takes one look at Thor and immediately stands. “Please, please,” they say, “I insist.”

“Just breathe.” The chair-finding-guard is saying. Between the slats of their helmet, their face is compassionate. “Breathe. It’s not as bad as you think. The Allfather is just and fair.” Over the guard’s shoulder, Thor can see Loki’s face pull, but it’s less a scowl than an ill-defined type of misery.

Thor breathes; at least, he tries to.

As if from a great distance, he can hear people. There’s laughter and gossip and, thankfully, no one seems to be directing too much attention towards their miserable little cluster. Instead Thor catches Loki’s name, and Mjolnir’s, on the lips of the crowd.

Norns, how his heart aches! His home: still here!

But he can discern more voices than simply the gathering Asgardian crowds. Over the murmur of those less familiar voices, low and sonorous as the booming of sea waves, Thor can hear his father.

It takes a little longer for the words being exchanged to permeate. Thor hears something about dragons. About a curse to be broken. Of dead and dying and, underneath it all, a demand for gold.

Thor has grown up in the realm of the warrior. He realises, startled, that this is a transaction he recognises more readily even than the exchange of credits for beer or of a smile for a night’s companionship. This is Odin, high king of the Nine Reams, placing a cost on the aid of his warriors.

Thor looks up; he’s not surprised when he recognizes those indigo robes.

Not surprised when he hears that the supplicants cannot pay. Their leader tries to offer up the mean gold bands that circle their own arms and, when that is met with a polite statement of their insufficiency, grovels for more time; time in which to come up with a plan for payment, though Thor can think of nothing, in the absence of gold, which his father would accept. For these strangers clearly have no great weapons with which to overwhelm a dragon, nor any heroes of their own. Nothing to appeal to Asgard. Gold has always been Odin’s preferred method for keeping count.

Desperation is the strongest of motivations. Maybe the dragon-cursed people will succeed in winning over the Allfather. Eventually.

Thor wonders how many times they’ll try. How many will die in the interim.

By the time he and Loki are called before the throne, hours later, the sun outside has shifted and the light slanting through the windows is more tolerable. Thor is steadier. Yet under that steadiness he feels sick to his heart. Homesick; honour-sick. Sick of the lies he perpetuates under his disguise.

Although it’s better, by far, to lie than to be recognised.

The guards direct him and Loki to kneel, but Thor’s seen this ritual from the opposite side enough times. He’s ahead of them in lowering himself. Besides him, Loki lets out a long suffering sigh, but follows Thor’s lead. As she does, her skirts pool out; brushing against his heavy leathers.

Thor keeps his head down. Tries to focus on the green and blue threads that make up the fabric Loki’s clad in. His flesh eye makes out the run of stitches keeping her hem in place, but it’s his mechanical eye that refuses to leave him in ignorance of the measure of those stitches, their average length, their perfect sameness.

It’s too much. Not just the dress or his eye. All of it.

Thor closes his eyes. Maybe if he simply doesn’t look? Not at Loki; certainly not at that family that no longer exists. It can’t be so bad if he doesn’t _see_ their parents? And surely he won’t have long to endure? Loki must spring her trick shortly? She can’t be that unthinkingly cruel as to allow this situation to linger?

The lead guard makes a quick report of their less than noble actions: two strangers to the realm; an attempt to break into the queen’s library. Their good behaviours since capture.

Thor can almost imagine Loki rolling her eyes at the inanity of the words. Such a petty thing to take before the Allfather; that’s what she’d say. ‘When I am Allfather, it shall be done away with.’ Thor wonders whether, during that two-year interlude, Loki had indeed done away with such ‘pettiness’. But no one who lives can answer that question.

His hands start to shake, the knowing of it rising once more in him. For in their time, everyone here today is dead.

Loki is dead.

Thor has failed them all.

“Friggason. Friggadottir.” Even when expected, it’s a shock to hear their father call them by the names for the nameless: Loki’s ‘joking’ contingency plan, made when weaving their new identities on-board the Milano. Then it had seemed charming if sentimental. Now it leaves Thor fighting not to disgrace himself, for their father has unknowingly disowned them.

Besides Thor, the spill of fabric that is all he can make out of his sister (his brother) moves slightly. Loki’s not one to shift in discomfort. Yet now…?

Thor will not risk raising his gaze; cannot bear to look up; to see Frigga Allmother, _his_ mother, looking down in judgement upon them.

“And what do you have to say for yourselves?” Thor waits for Loki to answer their father. To spin whatever tale she’s concocted and that necessitated their capture.

The silence stretches.

Thor turns his head. Looks at Loki. Realises that _Loki_ is looking at _him_. Like she expects _Thor_ to answer the question.

Thor frowns. Tries to telepath, _It’s your damn plan._ But he’s never had the knack of working with Seidr and the message clearly goes nowhere. He looks back at the floor, hoping that Loki must surely _now_ say something and frantically wracking his brains in case his brother is, unexpectedly, broken.

While he’s waiting, he makes the mistake of looking up, into his father’s face.

He’d forgotten how Odin looked from this angle.

And he’d forgotten how _old_ his father looked. How tried and beaten down: a king who has survived a thousand battles. Sympathy, soft and giving as rot in the heart of an oak, almost overwhelms Thor.

There’s movement in the periphery of his dead-eye: a slight form next to the Allfather. Someone perfect and beloved and hauntingly out of time.

Besides Thor, Loki – _his_ Loki; female-Loki – has started to speak. Words that Thor doesn’t bother following, because, of course, they will be the right ones. From Loki, that’s usually a guaranteed thing.

Except for when he’s facing down mad titans.

_This_ multiverse’s Loki looks like he’s faced down a titan. He’s slight and thin in a way Thor doesn’t remember his brother ever being, though that’s not what gives the impression of having lost a war. No, that rises from his face, which is drawn and pale and, alarmingly, bears a series of small, faint marks across the line of his mouth, scars mostly healed, but still evident. An injury that must be some days old.

Thor’s breath grows jittery; his skin tingling with corporeal horror. For to have such scars linger, the injury, fresh, must have been horrific.

Looking at that tracery of damage, Thor’s heart lurches; he feels it turn to lead, a sullen weight distending his stomach and leaving him fighting down the urge to vomit. Thor can no more fail to ask, “What happened?” than he could will himself dead among the New Statesman’s slaughtered.

He only realizes that he’s broken through the web of lies Loki’s been spinning when his brother falls silent. Everyone turns to face him. And, breathtakingly close, yet so much further below him, Prince Loki’s eyes are wide, shocked. He truly is tiny.

Loki staggers a step back, the space between them opening again. Thor cannot stand it; cannot, in that instant, comprehend what possible logic could cause Loki to back away from him, when Thor has sought him out in deepest concern. It’s almost as though-

“ _Brother!_ ” Female-Loki hisses. Disoriented, Thor turns back to look at her, only then realising that she’s several steps away, though rapidly rising to her feet.

One of the guards puts a heavy hand on her shoulder. Loki stops where she is.

So does Thor.

For of course Prince Loki has backed away from him! Any sensible being would retreat from a complete stranger who has crossed the royal dais and was reaching for their face. As a cluster of guards converge on him, Thor fights to stand down. But it’s hard, even without Stormbreaker, to persuade himself not to join battle.

For, yes, Thor can see how he might have frightened this alternate brother; might have startled the whole court. But those _marks!_ Loki’s _face!_ He can’t stop staring.

That someone would-

Thor forces himself to remain where he is. To not scare his brother any further; not now he can see the pulse flickering in the hollow of that slender neck.

Thor knows that he’s overreacting; that this isn’t his timeline to meddle in. He raises his hands. Takes to his knees.

Dimly he’s aware that one of the guards has ‘caught’ him. That there’s a hand, tight and restraining, around his bicep.

He’s down, and he should stay silent. Shouldn’t engage in the sudden flurry of activity he’s caused, save maybe to look back to his Loki and offer an apologetic expression; a hope that she can still spin whatever tale it is that she needs to.

There are twelve billion lives in the balance here, and he’s treating it like his own personal reboot!

Later he’ll realise how close he came to walking away. It would have been a simpler future, certainly. But as he goes to bow his head, to close his eyes, to wish it all over, he becomes aware of a tread of boots, light yet familiar. A shadow tries to fall over him; but Loki isn’t big enough to complete the task.

Thor waits for the boy to demand an explanation. Or, maybe, to present Thor with one. For Loki’s always been quick to winkle out secrets.

There is only silence.

Silence, save for the murmurs of the gathered crowds.

A decision to remain in unquestioning ignorance is hardly his brother’s style. Thor looks up. Along that faint line, dividing his brother’s upper and lower lip, there lies the suggestion of blood. Red and liquid, it traces the join of his mouth.

“Who did this, Loki?” Because apparently he can’t help himself. He longs to elbow the guard away; to close the gap between himself and this fragile replica of his brother; and thence place his hands on Prince Loki’s face, raising it to the light to better see the harm.

But as he has yet some self-control; Thor does none of this.

“ _Please_ forgive my brother,” _Thor’s_ Loki, the older Loki, is saying; voice a more feminine form of her usual suave. “He’s deeply damaged but means no harm and-”

Thor ignores her. Focusses on the youth before him. He’s smiling, about to say something complimentary to this child-like brother, when he realizes that the boy still hasn’t spoken. Just like that, the pattern suddenly make sick sense. For, Norns be blessed, it looks like the boy’s lips had actually once been sewn together!

Thor can’t remember this. Not these events. Try as he might they are not familiar to him. A quick glance left and right gives him no context. Mother is missing. He – or, rather, a younger version of himself – has been stopped from interrupting by Loki – the older, female Loki. She has caught Prince Thor’s arm and is babbling something, apparently distraught and alarmed. Possibly with good cause considering that Thor’s alternate self is holding tight to Mjolnir.

Oh! How Thor _misses_ her!

Between the two switched-about sets of brothers stands Odin; face dark, holding a spear that’s suddenly looking a whole lot less ceremonial.

Well, so be it. If Thor must fight the lot of them, then he shall, but first he must see to Prince Loki. Looking up at the not-still-a-child-nor-yet-a-man, Thor strives to make his voice soft as he can and asks, “What happened? Who did this?” For someone has surely caused his brother substantial damage. Caused him harm and had it done, apparently, under Thor’s own nose.

And Thor _still_ cannot remember this incident occurring. He begs that it be an occurrence specific to this timeline only.

Young Loki sneers down at Thor, “Who are you to question me thus? I am a prince of Asgard.” This! From a haughty youth, bare old enough to play spear-bearer to his elders! “I don’t need doting words from honourless has-beens. I defend my own integrity.”

Thor, lips ready parted around an offer to murder the guilty, stops. He starts to speak again and then, again, stops. Tries to think; to see this from Loki’s viewpoint. His brother. Proud. Keen to prove himself. To be strong, to measure up, to out-compete his older brother.

To measure up in a contest that’s always been fixed.

Thor’s hands are shaking. For the first time since murdering Thanos; it’s with rage.

His skin wants to jump and jerk and he can sense the singing of the storms stronger than he has in years. Thor is, suddenly, ridiculously, grateful that he’s hidden his eyes behind smoked glass. For, surely the lightening that must be forming in them would otherwise give away his identity? “What. Happened. Loki?”

Loki’s eyes flicker over Thor and his guards to the man he still, in this time, unquestioningly _knows_ is his father. Whatever he sees there, it doesn’t seem to much reassure him for, when he looks back at Thor, Thor recognizes all too well the shadow of fear in his brother’s face. He’d thought Thanos put it there; evidently not.

“Yes, son. Why don’t you tell this warrior what happened? Why don’t you defend your integrity to one who has clearly faced battle for the betterment of our realm?”

Loki’s shoulders are thin. He’s a mere scrap of living being. Intellectually Thor knows that his brother has always been smaller than him, but now, as a full-grown adult…? Even kneeling, Thor feels like he towers above this younger form of his brother; is massively heavier, stronger, fatter.

“Father-” Prince Thor, the one belonging to the here and now of this realm, has finally won free of female-Loki. “I hardly think that-”

Odin raises a hand. “Be silent.”

While not at the muscle mass Thor commands when full-grown, Prince Thor is still taller, bigger and stronger than his brother. Yet what does he do to aid the younger prince? Nothing. He offers naught but silence.

Thor shoots himself a poisonous look, but alas, his younger self appears unruffled.

Younger Loki starts to speak. His gaze is fixed on Thor’s face. He does not blink, though there are strange points of high colour in his cheeks. Humiliation, if not shame, Thor realises, and pain. He gives Loki his full attention.

“I interfered with the forming of my brother’s weapon.” That dainty, pointed chin rises in defiance; speaks steadily despite the agony he must be in. “I’ve been punished and so my transgression is over. Forgotten about. For I’ve accepted my consequences as a warrior should.”

And _now_ , sickeningly, Thor does recognise the occasion: the day he received Mjolnir.

But he doesn’t remember everything else. Yes, Loki had been reprimanded by their father for some mischief or other, returning from Nidavellir to Asgard separately and in disgrace. But he can’t recall Loki being hurt and silent. True, the audience was full that day. But as for these outlanders, frantic for help they have not the coin to bribe…? And no, he most certainly does not recall two thieves brought to trial in the closing hours.

Please, let this be some idiosyncrasy of this multiverse. An effect of the timelines’ divergence and not a sign of his own blindness. Thor laughs, because it appears that Loki has always been right about him; about his self-centred blindness. His laugher makes Prince Loki flinch back, perceiving scorn piled on his harm.

A drop of blood seeps from between his lips. Thor wants to kill someone.

There are so many _wonderful_ targets nearby.

But there are more urgent priorities. He forces his voice to gentle. “You should go to Eir for healing, bro- Prince Loki.”

Loki’s spine goes rigid. Offence or fear? It’s ever a fine line. “I assure you, Friggason, I am quite-"

“My son has been punished in accordance with our laws and as is proper.” Odin strides over. “Now you, too, should-“

“Your son,” Thor cannot believe his ears, “is injured and yet you advise that he grin and bear it, rather than seek out actual medical treatment?” Thor’s palm itches, empty of a warrior’s weapon, and he sincerely considers merely balling his fist and punching his father. Not his father. Whoever this Odin may prove to be.

Truly, Thor cannot recall their father ever treating them so. But then, neither can Thor remember himself falling ill or badly injured. As for Loki’s hurts; Thor had never thought to wonder if his brother might prove less durable than he himself.

“You _dare_ speak to me so?” Odin’s patience clearly exhausted, he gestures the guards to drag Thor from the room.

The guards obey. Or, rather, they try to. Thor considers resisting, but one look at his younger brother’s face – both of them – etched in equivalent lines of fear and worry, convince him to play along. Thus, he lets himself be drawn back, all the while staring up at the man he has called father.

“You might be a brilliant warrior and a good king. But trust me, you are a _terrible_ parent.”

“And who are _you_ ,” Odin sneers, “to dictate to _me_?”

“Brother!” Loki is besides him, kneeling on the floor in a pool of long skirts, as though she too were but a petty criminal. That Thor has brought his family to this! “Brother, stop it! Please, Allfather, some mercy. My brother is not well.”

Her hands trace across his face, coming to rest on his cheeks. For a moment, Thor is convinced that she’s going to hug him there and then; a show of comfort entirely unsuited to the setting.

Thor, having her here, cannot help but scan her lips for any sign of possible damage wrought in this era. Naturally, any such sign, if ever it were present, is long since gone.

He looks back at Prince Loki, still marred; at his younger self, evidently confused and discomforted; and at Odin.

“I’m not the one who once said ‘no brave warrior should suffer ill to remain unchallenged’.” Thor smiles, and, in the strange and brittle way of things these days, feels tears sting at his eyes. It is as well that he wears the glasses lest he shame them all with his weeping. His voice may be choked, but he forces out the next words, “I should have known your words for lies.”

“And what,” Odin says, “would _you_ have me do? Ignore such an endeavour?” The words are imperious and scorning. But Thor, looking up with vision that shimmers and glistens, finds he can still read this man he spent so long idolizing. Always quick to rage, Odin’s fire has burned out. He appears disquieted by Thor’s tears; unnerved to see a warrior, even a warrior-turned-thief, weep.

Well, that makes one of them. For himself, Thor’s becoming used to being a public spectacle.

He leans closer to the shelter of his brother. Loki’s hands drop to hold one of Thor’s, apparently the diligent sister tending to her raving brother. Her hands are over-tight on his and Thor wishes he had the attention to spare for getting a better reading of her sentiments. For now, however, he has only focus for Odin. Odin and his two sons.

He picks his words with as much care as he can. “For starters,” he offers, “I would be interested in knowing how a youth can have interfered in the creation of a weapon I know to have existed for eons.” For Mjolnir had been his older sister’s weapon, forged long before the birth of either boy. Thor sees the knowing of that statement strike at Odin, but continues to press forward. “And then I would seek to learn how those that did this have fared. For they raised a hand to a prince of Asgard-“

“Loki deserved punishment. He-“

Thor laughs. “The tearing of flesh is now a suitable punishment?” And yet, why not? Hadn’t Odin’s response to Thor’s own first reprimandable transgression – his action against Jotunheim – been banishment? For years, Thor has hung to the things that he learned on Midgard; has justified his father’s actions though the lens of the man it helped him become.

But the man it helped Loki become? Confronted with knowledge of his adoption alone and conflicted? Isolated while learning that he was of a realm they had always termed _monsters_?

Thor should have _been there_ for him.

Whatever happened to _teaching_ them as they grew?

“I would say it seems rather steep for a first offence.”

“It is hardly the first.”

“Or perhaps, looking as he does, you fear a repeat of history if you are too tender?” Thor shouldn’t have said it. He knows this as the words spill across his lips. But he’s not blind enough to miss the similarities between Loki and Hela. Had it been knowingly done, on Odin’s behalf, when helping his newly-adopted child’s transformation? An admission of the loss he felt for a child rightly banished, yet still, for the heart is never simple, loved?

In Thor’s grip, female-Loki’s hands are suddenly still.

“Maybe,” says Odin, voice suddenly cold, “you should hold your council on things that do not concern you.”

Thor should, truly. But Loki, younger Loki, is hurting. “At least tell me you’ll take your-” but at the last moment, seeing that resolve in their father’s eyes, Thor redirects his plea to the one person he knows it will affect, “-brother to a healer.” It’s strange to look on himself as he once was; nostalgic and guilt-crippling at one and the same time. “You’re meant to protect him.” Because that’s true. And then, possibly too late to salve the sting to Loki’s volatile pride, “You’re meant to protect one another.”

Thor has always thought he’s known himself well. For, truly, he has never lied to himself, nor acted counter to his nature, save perhaps in these last few years. (Or perhaps cowardice and weakness have always been his true nature.) Yet trying to track down those myriad emotions on his younger self’s face…

It’s easier by far to read Loki.

Both the way female-Loki has pulled back from him; offended at the slip that Thor’s protection should ever be needed, and the way Prince Loki’s lips twist and sneer.

In sneering, the half-healed scars along the bow of his mouth pull taunt, flooding red as blood shifts within the barely-healed tissue.

Younger-Thor sees it too. His eyes go lighter. Not quite tipping over to storm nor rage, yet making towards that. “Brother-“ he says, and no more.

“I’m perfectly alright!” Loki’s spat refutation of aid would maybe carry more weight if it didn’t cause fresh blood to fleck his lips and chin.

Odin winces.

But it’s Prince Thor who reaches out to his brother. In doing so, he manages to hold Loki captive, for there’s never been a Loki who Thor can ever imagine will back down before him. It’s strange, from the outside, to watch someone else cradle a face that he knows so well.

Then Prince Thor turns to them. “You claimed yourself a healer, maiden. What say you to looking on my brother?”

Thor – because he _knows_ himself; knows how he would react in this era and how Loki, too, would have taken to such a scene – is all too well aware of why he’s decided not to take Prince Loki to the healing wing. Getting him there will be all but impossible; persuading him to admit that he’s come to harm…

Thor always used to think Loki the pragmatic one. Strange how he always forgets these little quirks of harmful pride.

Yet, for Thor to trust Loki’s care to a stranger? Thor sees himself for a fool.

But all that analysis is a skin of logic and deduction skating over an almost crushing horror. For, what if, in touching their alternate self, harm or worse befalls his brothers?

Maybe something of Thor’s concerns are present in the female-Loki too, for she hesitates. Hesitating around Odin never works for the best, “Well? Get to it, girl.”

It’s been one hundred and twenty six hours since his last panic attack, excluding that little glitch on the bifrost. And the one at the library. And this afternoon. _Excluding_ those, another one isn’t due for nearly twenty hours yet. Thor knows, because he keeps track. He counts the lengths of his intervals and, though never plotted out formally, keeps careful track of his progress or lack thereof.

He’d thought he was getting better.

Yet as he watches female-Loki – _his_ Loki; his wonderful, unexpectedly-kind, _stolen-back_ brother – Thor can feel his breath accelerating. He tries to steady its flow, but his lips feel fuzzy and numb, a sensation that is creeping up to his nose, leaving him helpless to stop the little panting gasps he makes.

Dimply he’s aware that the guards who had been restraining him earlier, actually now aren’t. Rather he’s behind held up by their hands. It’s probably all to the good for, despite the ache in his knees from kneeling, the floor is somehow a dizzying distance away.

He wants to close his eyes and curl in on himself. Wants to block out the moment – another moment; so many dreadful moments that he’s survived – when Loki will surely-

_Oh, Loki! How can you be so careless?_

He should close his eyes against their annihilations, but he can no more shut out the image of Loki reaching out to Loki than he can stop the darkness reaching up to drag him down.

#

On Midgard, in that battered fishing town, Thor had played Fortnite.

It was a complex game; complex enough to build a wall of tasks-that-don’t-really-matter, between himself and reality. A collection of things-to-be-done where the real world only held those-that-he-failed. Worse yet, _didn’t_ hold those that he’d failed, for they were dead; gone.

Quite probably even beyond Valhalla.

So he played because he could, and because he was good at it, and because he could win.

And, where he failed to win, he could save and restart.

Life, alas, has no restart.

#

Thor opens his eyes.

Light, soft and golden, shimmers on a high, arched ceiling. Elaborate carvings – beasts, hunters, forests – sweep from that ceiling to near halfway down the wall. Even so, they stop shy of any height Thor, if standing, could have reached from the ground.

He closes his eyes, both the good and the dead, and tries to close his mind. It’s an easier thing wished for than done. For he can smell the famed orchards of Idunn and can hear the shriek of a circling kite.

He’s home; Asgard restarted.

Then he remembers the truth. He doesn’t even have the energy to throw up.

The bed besides him dips. “I know that you’re awake.” It’s Loki’s voice, for all that it’s oddly pitched.

Thor should open his eyes.

After a moment a cold hand comes to rest on his brow. Not so much checking for temperature as just… being there. It smooths over his hair. Traces the side of his face and pets along his beard.

It’s silly to turn into that touch, though Thor can no more prevent doing so than a flower hold back from following the sun.

They sit is silence for longer than Thor expects Loki to have the patience for. In the end it’s his own creeping unease over Loki’s temper that stirs him, not any action from his brother. Sister. Brother. Sibling.

Opening his eyes, he turns so that he can see Loki, mostly in silhouette against the window. “What happened?”

“Do you mean, what happened after you had that spectacular collapse?” For an instant, just an instant, Thor hopes that he provided a distraction for Loki. Helped her to flee her mutual annihilation with his less than glorious swooning act.

Life doesn’t work that way. “I finished healing… myself. An act I was well towards completing before your less than timely interruption. Afterwards, we were given these rooms to recover in.”

“I see.” Thor pushes himself up. A fine silk sheet pools in his lap. He looks at the windows; takes in the absence of bars. “I didn’t think we’d become honoured guests?”

“It’s the Outlanders Garden through there,” Loki says, naming one of the palace’s smaller, fully enclosed courtyards overlooked by rooms where some of the realm’s less trusted visitors were billeted. Not exactly a prison, but certainly not an easy exit route. “There are guards on the door, though they’re not exactly restricting access.”

“Ah.” Thor picks at the sheet. Tries to. His hands don’t seem to want to stop shaking. Maybe something of the very fabric of the universe knows he’s not worthy of this cheating visit to his home.

He longs to hold something solid. “Stormbreaker?”

Loki lets out a peeved hiss. “Who knows? In the weapons vault?”

Thor wonders if Loki would be so dismissive if it were the tesseract that had been confiscated. Then he remembers that here, now, the tesseract is safe in the weapons vault. Or maybe it’s not; maybe it’s already lost on Midgard. His head spins with all the lines of fate stretching from person to object to place and round and around until a net fit to snare all the universe is created.

Is this what mother meant when speaking of the great Seidr weavings? The spinning of the fates?

“Did you get it?”

“Get what? The spell?” Loki sounds frustrated. “So far we’ve been here for hours, and yet all I’ve done is be arrested, forced to heal an idiotic reflection of myself, and then to play nursemaid to you.”

_Play nursemaid._ “I’m sorry,” Thor whispers, contrite.

Loki stands; a sudden explosion of exasperation. “Don’t be _sorry_! Tell me what we’re meant to be doing here!”

“Doing?” Thor frowns at his sibling. “It’s _your_ plan to get the book.”

“My-?” Loki startles to a stop. “ _My_ plan is to sneak into the damn library. It’s _your_ plan to get into the palace and-“ she makes an angry gesture “-whatever.”

“My plan?” Thor’s horrified. “I don’t have a plan here.” If he did, it would certainly never have involved returning to their old halls.

“No bloody kidding! This is the worse ever-“ She stops. Looks at Thor in a way that would once have left him very nervous, though, since the final fall of Thanos, Loki seems to have become a more tender person. With him, at least. She takes a deep breath. “Are you telling me that getting captured by the guards _wasn’t_ deliberate?”

“Deliberate?” Why ever would Loki think such a thing? “Of course not!”

“ _Of course not!_ ” Loki’s mocking-mimicry is almost charming. “What the Hels is so ‘of course not’ about that? Usually when we get startled upon, you raise Mjolnir and-“ She shuts up.

Thor twists his fingers through the bedsheets. Ah. So that’s what happened. “Sorry.” He’s always missing his cues. Always messing things up. “I’m sorry.” He should have _known_ Loki wouldn’t inflict this on him; that the guards were just an unfortunate, ill-timed challenge. “Should have known.” He’s let Loki down; maybe let _everyone_ down. The beings awaiting their cure, the Guardians expecting them back, the-

“Stop it.” Loki’s voice is firm; her fingers strong as they grasp Thor’s. “Thor, brother, look at me. Look at me.”

Another day, a day where Loki was less insistent, Thor more pathetic, he doubts he’d have been able to obey. As it is, today Thor can find the strength to do as Loki wishes. He looks at his sibling.

Loki nods, apparently approving. Her hand, lightly calloused from centuries of knife play, cups Thor’s cheek. “This is not your fault.” Then her eyes go thoughtful; her lips – unscarred! – make a slight grimace. “Well, okay, it’s slightly your fault. But it’s also somewhat my fault, and mostly it’s just a misunderstanding.”

Her hand slides back along Thor’s skull, long fingers tangling in Thor’s hair, and Thor feels himself pulled forward into a loose embrace. “These things happen.”

Thor almost believes her.

Mostly he just lets himself not believe anything; not think anything. Instead he leans into the peace of the moment and tries not to exist too much.

“Bath?” Loki’s suggestion is quiet.

But the very idea of curling up with Loki and attempting to take his ease here, in this haunted realm, is beyond the pale. “No.”

There’s a slight rocking motion; most likely Loki nodding. “Okay.”

#

Later. Much later, when the sun is starting to dip and Thor’s feeling steadier, it seems a good time to figure out what’s going on. What they’re going to do next.

It’s helped, in part, by the tray of food a guard comes bearing to offer them. “The prince thought you might be hungry,” the guard says, though leaving Thor non-the-wiser as to which prince that might be. “Apparently you were missed at the lunchtime table.”

Thor hadn’t realized they were permitted to eat with Asgard’s guests.

Settling the tray on the bed and himself besides it, Thor takes a bite from a thick wedge of cheese. As he does so it – the taste; the familiarity; the futility of existence – is almost too much and Thor nearly gags. He swallows instead. Reaches for more. “Whatever did you tell father?”

Remembers too late that Loki has a preference for not calling their father as such.

Loki seems not to care this time.

“I managed,” Loki says, dropping down next to him, “to convince Odin that you’re crazy, and that I wanted to access medical texts from the library to help you.” Idly, she picks at some fruit.

“And he believed you?” For Thor certainly would not have.

“Of course he did.” Loki sounds unconcerned. “I’m the god of tricks, after all. Who could fail to believe me?” Loki never does seem to realise that her grin and those hands, easily spread to display her genius, have never been all that convincing.

It’s the grin that catches at Thor.

It’s foolish to look for signs of the long-ago on a face that’s near-all lies. Thor can’t help it. His fingers reach out, though he stops himself short of actually touching Loki. “Did I really-” _miss all of this_ , is how he wants to end his thought. Alas though, for those words would make his horror all about himself. What he really yearns to ask is-

“Did that actually happen to me?” A cold light has entered Loki’s eye and, when she laughs, it’s a brittle, violent sound. Thor has his answer. Loki does not stop. “Of course it did. This isn’t some false reality, _brother_. It’s not a game or make-belief. They put a coal in my mouth before they stitched me shut.” Her gaze falls, lost to the distance. “I guess they knew what I was before I did.”

“I didn’t know.”

“I know.” There’s no particular hostility in Loki’s gaze. If there’s a grudge there, it’s one abraded and eroded by the winds of time. Thor wants to curl up; never to leave his shame.

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that!” Loki leaves him; rising to pace the room. She’s angry – rightfully so – and agitated – unsurprisingly. Her strides are too long for the room and the violence of her own passage causes her long robes to sweep and catch around her.

It really is very hard not to apologise again.

Instead Thor closes his mouth. Imagines a needle, one of the dwarves’ thick, blunt-ended instruments for stitching tough leather hides together, pressing at his mouth ‘til it first bruises then gives. The agony of being stabbed; the strange sharp endlessness of the needle and the roughness of the thread drawn after.

He imagines his lips stitched shut, and he tries to _think_ rather than to speak.

Loki had referred to the as dwarves knowing of his/her true heritage. Had that galled him; when he’d realised? That everyone had known, centuries before he had, that he was no blood kin to the one he had named father? Had that been the feather to bowl him over and into violence? Or was it just one additional slight of a thousand, amongst which Thor’s own omission weighted no more and no less?

Thor looks at his sibling, and tries to understand her. But, as ever, all he can see is someone he loves; someone with the power to destroy or rebuild him. Someone who seems, on almost every moment of every day, to act in ways beyond Thor’s ken.

“I’m not you.” The words are slow, but the feel of them in his mouth is better that his earlier flurry of apologies and guilt. More thought out. More deliberate.

Needless to say, Loki doesn’t seem to be listening.

Thor continues, because with Loki _seeming_ is rarely the same as _being_. “I know that you-” like secrets and tricks “-think on things as I do not.”

Loki materializes a book. She starts to flick through it, apparently looking for something.

“But I do have eyes in my head-” he laughs “- _eye_ in my head. I should have seen, even if you wanted it hidden.” Though for what end Loki would hide being tormented, Thor cannot fathom. Harmful pride? Some perverse victory in a non-existence battle of wills with their father? Simply because he _could_ hide it?

“I should have seen lots of things.” Seen the tears Loki shed as they battled against the light of Jotunheim’s destruction. “But I also should have stopped to ask you about them.”

Loki laughs. “And you really think I’d have answered? More fool you.”

At that Thor feels humour unfurl, warm and vulnerable as a seedling in frost. “You’re missing the fact that I should have _tried_.” Though Loki’s right; it would likely have been a fruitless task.

Thankfully he seems, at last, to have Loki’s undivided attention. Of late it’s been a soothing thing. Warmth and love and brotherhood. But they are back in Asgard now, and everything seems strained once more.

“You miss the point.” It’s familiar for Loki’s voice to be bile. Familiar enough to almost be welcome, even as it shreds Thor lungs to breathlessness. “You would never have been able to ask me anything because you never saw anything _ever_. Never paid attention; never made the connections. And yet still you were worshiped; adored. You never even _tried_.”

Of course Thor hadn’t. He’d had Loki, the other half of his soul, to capture those impressions, to lean in close and whisper truths in his ear. Why poorly duplicate perfection? “You were always there.” Always going to be there. Weaker where Thor was stronger; smarter where Thor was less so.

But Loki’s face is twisted in rage. “And you expected me to just be happy? The second son forever?”

It’s like they’ve never moved past that battle on the rainbow bridge. In truth, for _this_ Loki, maybe they haven’t. Not really. Warm hugs when weeping are one thing; perhaps when they both stand, whole and well, this is the divide they’ll never be able to traverse.

“I’m going out.” Loki says. “We have a time limit, and there are things I must know.”

She shimmers, lit with tesseract glow, and is gone.

#

On Midgard, when it all became too much, Thor drank. Having drunk his fill, he’d then eat. Eating seemed to raise his thirst and so he’d drink once more; the two bodily needs chasing one another round and around in him ‘til he’d only stop having emptied the pantry.

The tray, here, provided for their care, is long since finished. It’s barely started to fill the ache in Thor’s chest. Thankfully, he knows of another source of food, for at this hour in the throne room there will be tables. A feast called up in celebration of Thor’s gifted Mjolnir.

What better way to indulge than to glut on the sustenance that haunts his dreams; the feast enough for him to guzzle until he’s truly as destroyed as he feels inside?

The door guard doesn’t try to stop his departure; rather Thor is followed to the throne room, to the ranks of warriors and higher-courtiers. He takes a seat at a bench at the end of the table for the lowest rank of warriors; a table choked with the old and the mauled; the ones who speak of the glories they have had, not the feats they are yet to do. Those for whom, despite these ‘illustrious histories’ have failed to win the respect and regard of their peers.

He sits and he eats.

No one talks to him, but no one chaises him away.

As he eats he listens, for he’s no way to stopper his ears and prevent it. The feast is loud and raucous; full of gossip and good-humour. Yet listen though Thor might, he cannot hear his father’s voice, nor yet that of the two princes.

Can neither see nor hear of his mother.

His hands shake, so desperately does he wish for just one more instant in her warmth. But he’s had his stolen heart-to-heart with her. And Rocket is right; to run weeping to her is no way to learn to move on.

He flexes his hands, trying to drive the shaking out, then reaches for another leg of boar. Someone ‘compliments’ him on his appetite. Well, he always has been one for shows of excess.

“Something to wash it down with?” The warrior besides him is old; face warped from a head-shot gone wrong, scars laid upon scars. He’s holding a jug of mead.

Thor aches for missing the sweetness of mead.

Loki would say he deserved sweetness.

Loki would _also_ tell Thor not to bother coming back drunk.

“No.” The word slips out easily.

#

When the night is older and the festivities are running emptier, though still flooded with food and drink, Thor leaves to relieve himself and, upon returning, finds the hall he’s passing along lively with a familiar shimmering sensation. He stops; waits.

“Most people panic at this moment.” It’s Loki’s voice; familiar and unfamiliar all in one.

Thor can feel his lips twisting, maybe into a smile, maybe into a grimace. “I’m old; I’ve seen stranger, my prince.”

Loki’s laughter is anything but humorous. Still, he appears barely an arm’s reach from Thor. He looks better than he had the previous day. “You’re not that old. And no one can do strange things as well as I.”

Is it folly to feel fondness at the bragging? If so, it’s a folly Thor never seems able to cull from himself. “Why this mysterious meeting, my prince?”

“A strange sentiment indeed from one who’s the _largest_ mystery of the party.” And yes, if the way Loki’s eyes drop to Thor’s belly is any indication, the word choice was deliberate.

Older, Loki will become bolder. Such a statement would be accompanied by a sharp finger in the gut. It’s almost charming to find a Loki so… halfway formed.

“We all have our secrets, my prince. Mine are not for you.” Not yet.

Loki leans against the wall. He’s aiming for nonchalance, but Thor can read his lack of ease clearer than ever. His hand aches to smooth over his brother’s hair; to brush back that insanely neat hair and to tell him that it will all be all right. That he will be all right.

That would be a lie. Asgard will end in fire and ice. And Loki will die, horribly, in almost every timeline.

Thor doesn’t reach out to Loki. He does close his eyes, glad of his glasses, and fights back the urge to weep.

Briefly it seems that Loki has fallen under some strange spell; maybe one of his doubles whispering secrets to him, or else mayhap the guard outside the illusion has noticed Thor missing and Prince Loki is setting things to rights.

Then Loki utters words that run ice through Thor’s veins. “I feel like I know you.”

Loki – infuriatingly smart, alarmingly perceptive – _cannot_ be allowed to guess at the truth of the matter.

“My prince. I regret this is not so.” He’s so lost in the possible disaster Loki’s recognition could herald that he misses the start of Loki’s persuasion, catching the conversation’s change only when he says, “Father will announce it tomorrow and send forth a horde the next morn.”

Thor wonders what the indigo-clad beings with their cursed dragon have finally found to bribe the Allfather with. What he doesn’t realise is that he’s said as much until Loki’s eyes grow wide. “The Allfather is not _bribed_ by the Zio. To risk Asgardian blood for those not even of the Nine Realms would be-“ Thor tunes him out.

He doesn’t need to hear the end of Loki’s plot to know where it’s going. “No.”

Loki starts; ruffled as a cat. “I can assure you that-“

“No.” There is no way that Thor-hiding-as-Norn’s-knows-whom is then also going to hide as princeling-Loki. Especially not so that this tiny, fragile, perfect upstart sibling can take to the field and do battle with a dragon.

Loki, being Loki, skips straight over confusion and acceptance and all the way into offence. He looks like he wants to _stab_ Thor. Well, it won’t be the first time. “I can assure you that I’m quite competent and-“

“That’s not it.” It is. “There will be plenty of opportunities for you to battle monsters in the future.” Far too many, though Thor doesn’t realise as much until the first time they hold a bodiless funeral for his brother.

“I am quite-“

“You’re a child.” Loki’s face goes white with rage. Well, Thor’s always had his skillset. He steps forward, trusting that Prince Loki’s illusion will hold; that no guard will see the Friggason looming over their young prince and attack; trusts that he won’t have to choose between making others bleed and being imprisoned even more securely. Female-Loki will murder him if he complicates their mission further.

In the here and now, _this_ Loki looks like he’s going to murder Thor. Possibly starting with the hand he’s had the affront to touch him with. “Loki. Listen.” Thor makes his voice urgent, because, even enraged, Loki’s incapable of ignoring anything that sounds of scandal and secrecy. “People die _every day_. People are gutted and maimed and broken in more ways that even your considerable whit can foresee. So trust me when I say that there’s a difference between the mewling nursery-bound brat you most assuredly are not anymore, and this vision of warrior witch king you’re striving to become. Give yourself time. Take challenges that are appropriate to your prior experience. Grow, and give yourself time to do so.”

Loki’s listening, but he’s not agreeing.

Words _never_ obey Thor as they should.

He starts to let Loki go. To ease back and ask the prince to not have him sent to the dungeons.

_Think, don’t react._

He reaches for his glasses. Sheds them. Loki doesn’t start at his mismatched eyes, not even when Thor reaches up to pluck out the mechanical one. Loki’s a prince raised in the court of a warrior-king. He’s seen worse.

But Thor has his undivided attention.

On leaving his eye socket, the mechanical eye ceases to send data to Thor. It should be like the world is cut in two; one half lost to darkness. But that’s not how fields of vision work. Rather, Thor loses his peripheral vision on that side, and everything suddenly feels… flat. Lacking in depth.

“I can’t stop you from going, my prince. Should you go there’s no guarantee that you won’t have a wonderful time. But if you listen to me, you’ll think on the herbs that you harvest for your spellcraft workings. Just because one has sent forth greenery and flowers and has all the appearance and properties of the mature plant you need; it doesn’t mean that plant will survive the harvesting. Better by far to let it take deeper root; to keep its use appropriate to its…” but here Thor’s lack of botanical knowledge fails him. “To move from boyhood jousting to a dragon hunt is a large step indeed.”

“You’re afraid.” From anyone else it would be a challenge; from Loki it’s just a statement of fact. Once upon a not-so-distant time Thor wouldn’t have heard the difference.

Well, of course he’s afraid. Whatever Loki and some of the more idiotic of Odin’s warriors might think, one doesn’t cross from boyhood to warriorhood in an heartbeat. A dragon hunt is no place for Loki; not yet. And if he goes… “Yes. I am afraid.”

“Yet you will not let me borrow your visage to attend in your stead?”

Ah Loki! Thor’s heart aches; a strange melding of love and grief. So observant, and yet still too innocent to understand what it is that he’s seeing. “No, my Prince. I will not let you take my visage for this. It may be beyond me to prevent you from attending, but you’ll need skill indeed to explain the existence of two Friggasons.”

Loki nods. “So you do mean to go then. I had thought you were no longer of that type.”

Thor frowns. “The type?”

Loki’s eyes are clear and calm. “To go on the hunt, of course. When I saw you were scared, I had thought you’d… well. That maybe you wouldn’t wish to go, but wouldn’t want to be noted missing. And that my offer would thus hold appeal. But with you also in attendance…”

It seems to have entirely bypassed Loki that any warrior, no matter how fallen, could possibly simply decline to attend a dragon hunt. Further, that they’d be willing to do as much openly. Not when the chance of glory hung, a bright prize before them.

Then he wonders what _Loki_ wanted to gain from the hunt. Personal honour aside, his brother’s never been one to foolishly risk hazards.

He could attempt to guess; instead he simply asks. “Is the dragon valuable in and of itself?”

“Of course,” Loki says, as though the answer were as obvious as the sun in the sky. Yet, where Thor’s brother has always been prickly in sharing his knowledge with Thor, in the perceived presence of a stranger, he seems to come alight instead, keen to prove his learning. “The dragon’s scales are imbued with many mystical properties, but alas they belong in a realm far away. One protected by ancient treaties.” His expression grows wistful. “I would dearly love to study one.”

“I’m sure, when the warriors return-“

Loki laughs, but it is a sad sound, and he ends by grimacing. “They’ll never think to do so. Such curiosity isn’t in their nature.” Thor presses a hand over his, consolingly. Privately he agrees. Loki gives him one last, beseeching look. “Are you certain I can’t persuade you, Friggason? I know book studies and arcane lore may not appeal to you personally, but surely you can see the value of-”

“I can see the value of a prince’s life.” Thor backs away. Tries not to see the beseeching edge that haunts his brother’s face. “Have a care for your injuries, my prince. Good night”

He knows Loki watches him as he leaves.

#

Sliding back into his place at the tables of the great hall, it feels to Thor as though he’s fought a major battle. His heart pounds loud and his blood burns in his veins. He feels adrift in the familiar; now full of conspiracy and pain. How could he have never _seen_ before?

He longs for Stormbreaker more than ever he has for his lost eye. Aches for her soothing lines and solid construction. For something that he can hold onto and not have her prove false.

And, in the deepest of ironies, he misses his sibling, for all that some might say they’ve just spoken. Even if Loki is naught but lies.

It makes his head ache, so he lays his brow down on his folded arm upon the table. Maybe if he finds Loki – _his_ Loki – then everything will seem better again?

“Oi. Oi.” A hand shakes his shoulder, not roughly but with definite intent to disrupt Thor’s stewing. “Friggason.”

He could ignore the words; indeed, for a moment he nearly does. Then he rolls his head to one side. Looks over the fold of his elbow at the man who’s spoken; a thin, gaunt warrior with tired eyes. “Aye?”

“I’m Urt of Stenton.” The eyes appraising Thor are hardly kindly, but nor are they hostile. “Where do you hail from?”

Thor closes his eyes. As the sunglasses hide this action, Urt doesn’t seem to notice, rather he continues with his questions. “Did you really nag the Allfather?” Thor buries his head back in his arm. He knows this will be catching attention. He should have left to seek out Loki. But how can he face his sibling, knowing of this harm he’d lived through? What other of Loki’s seemingly endless catalogues of How Life Did Him Wrong will prove true?

Reaching for ale will involve moving; worse yet, looking up.

“Did you battle by the Allfather’s side once? Do you know Prince Loki?” Is it possible to wait out this interrogation? “I can see you don’t like talking. We should wrestle.”

It’s such a desperately Drax thing to say and Thor’s heart aches all the worse missing for his new home. Whatever possessed him to return here, to these people whose murders he’s all but responsible for?

Yet here he is; and now he has a call to arms to contend with. “Why?”

“Why?” Thor might as well have asked why they breathe; why they drink. “Well, why not?” And Urt nods, clearly happy to have rebuffed the question.

“I’m not the battling kind. Not any more.” He’s not, and yet he is. With the Guardians Thor’s entered battles and turned aside all manner of monsters to allow galactic citizens some peace as they go about their days. It’s the least he can do, these days, to make up for things; to balance a score that will never tip in his favour.

To address his greatest shame.

For not going for the head.

His hand aches all the more for Stormbreaker.

“Oh. Not a proper dual. Just a friendly; a testing of strength. Surely the one who sparred with the Allfather isn’t alarmed by a few short turns about the fields?”

Thor remembers well those fields. Has sweated and shed blood there. Has bent more than a few weapons and shattered some upon occasion. Has stretched out his length in the sands more than once.

And, if that had been all, he’d have said yes. But it’s not his own ghost he fears to see where once he faced friends and comrades.

_Norns,_ but he needs a drink!

He reaches for the mead jug. Pours well and drinks deeply. “I don’t spar.” Not here. Not in Asgard, home to the bravest of the brave and in whose Halls warriors hold pride of place. Asgard; where every turn is like a blow from Mjolnir. He pours his mead afresh.

“Don’t spar?” Another warrior laughs. “With an axe such as the one I hear you came bearing?”

“Aye.” Says another. “Come! Do battle with honour amongst us and the Allfather may see clear to returning your weapon to you.”

“Come! It will be good practice for the dragon hunt.”

“Are you a coward, Friggason?”

But Thor ignores them and drinks his mead. Let them think what they will of him, for mere days hence he will be gone. Truly, with his failures he does not deserve their good regard. If they think of him with ill-favour, then it is no less than he deserves.

He drinks, but can never seem to drink enough. As the gossip moves around him, chiding as a scold’s tongue, Thor works towards emptying Asgard’s endless cellars. He reaches for the jug again.

Finds his hand pinned. “I think you’ve had enough.”

Loki, when Thor looks up at her, looks less angry than worried. For all that, she’s most definitely also angry. “I’m-“ _sorry_. He forces his lips shut.

There’s laughing and hooting that his sister’s come to carry him off to bed. For himself, Thor’s just glad Loki’s come looking for him at all. One of these days, she’s going to leave and it will be for the last time. It fits with the rest of Thor’s fate. Worse yet, with the way he riles his sibling.

Thor makes a pretence at staggering over the bench, more to emphasize his unsuitability to spar than due to any true level of intoxication. It would appear, alas, that it is possible to become too used to functioning while blind-drunk.

Loki’s hand is lovely, warm and bracing, around his bicep and Thor leans into her. At least if she’s truly angry, she can now just drop him. Maybe such petty vengeance will dull her temper in the long run?

Loki does no such thing. Rather Thor finds his arm across her slight shoulders as they make their way towards the hall’s great doors. Loki is silent as they go; it crosses Thor’s mind that she’s not usually this quiet; and also that she seems to have a preference for his honesty of late. Maybe if he tries to…? “Thank you for coming to find me.” _For not leaving and going your own way; for not stranding me here, in my recurring nightmare of ignorance, not again._

“I thought it time for rest,” Loki says. “Yet when I returned to our chamber, there you weren’t.”

Well, that’s not an unfair description. “Ah. Did you need my aid?” For maybe that’s a purpose he can have for Loki; a sleepmate to hold back her troubles?

Loki’s look lets Thor know just how unnecessary he is. “I’m quite up to my mission.” A pause. “Though it will take another night yet. It appears that mother was more inventive in her locking spells than I recall.”

“I thought you’d broken into all of the library’s sections before.” Thor hopes they’ve time enough for this slow skulduggery. He’s unsure how long remains until the divergences of the multiverses sweep them past whatever no-return event horizon exists; a possibility Loki’s being, as usual, vague about.

Thor also worries about his sanity, seeing all these walking dead. But that’s a trifling concern; nothing less than that which he must endure.

“Not the healing ones.”

“Huh?” He’s losing time again. Finding himself confused by the logical chains of actions around himself. He needs to do better than this!

But Loki isn’t sharp-tongued when she repeats, “I’ve not broken into the healing section before. Mother must have worried about spells so extremely…” She makes an elaborate gesture, which apparently means the healing spells their mother feared were ones that caused random spasms of the hand.

Thor nods. Pretends to believe his sibling, for that’s usually the easiest route, though he clearly remembers the lurid anatomy books Loki used to carry back to their hall when he’d been perfecting his shape shifting. Wonders what else it is that has caught Loki’s eye; what other secrets and artefacts are going to have found themselves copied and stowed away for when they travel back. Suspicions of secrets created now blur into suspicions of how Loki was then.

“What did you do?” For Thor would dearly love to know. Whatever had been worth _that_ punishment?

“Do?” Loki’s brows draw together, a fine line forming between. “Why, I have done nothing this night.” Thor knows his sibling; knows the shape of her lies.

He leans in closer and whispers. Thinks he whispers. Loki winces, so mayhap he does not. “Not _that_. Mjolnir. What did you do to her?” For, truly, Thor could see no harm come to her.

“Mjolnir?” For a heartbeat Loki just looks blank; honestly lost. “You told me that-” Her lips start to form the shape of a name Thor knows well, _Hela_ , but then, before Thor has to deal with talking about their evil sister, she catches up with what he actually meant and lets out a faint hiss, though Thor can see no reason to be impatient. “ _That_ incident? That’s what you want to talk about?” As though it were of the long ago, and the fallout not witnessed a mere day before.

“Aye,” Thor holds her arm tight, aiming to look as though the room is spinning. It’s not. It’s Thor’s ability to distinguish reality that seems to keep on shaking. For this one thing he wants to _see_ his sibling’s thoughts upon her face. “That incident.”

“Oh for-” But Loki, while apparently much put upon, indulges Thor enough to say, “They were rebinding the grip. At the time I thought it would be great fun if, when first you swung her, your grip slipped and Mjolnir went astray. So I transformed into a mosquitoes to torment the dwarves.” She sighs. “It hadn’t occurred to me that they would somehow suspect me.”

“What you need,” Thor says, fondly, tugging Loki closer so that it’s less the case that Loki is supporting him and more that they embrace, “is someone to watch your back.”

“Oh!” Loki’s brow arches in elegant scepticism. “And I don’t suppose you happen to know of such a hero?” There’s a smile behind her frown, and so Thor leans forward, the better to scrub his beard across her forehead. It earns him an elbow between the ribs and an indignant squawk.

Laughing Thor lets his sibling go. “Not with that attitude, I don’t.”

“Fool!”

“Trickster.” And that, at least, causes Loki’s lips to honestly smile.

“Naïve one,” but there’s proof in that smile that Loki’s happy to take advantage of such a failing until the end of eternity.

“Coward.” They freeze; naughty children at play when there are larger events in motion. “Or so I hear.”

“Oh, for the love of-” Loki hisses.

For himself, Thor just turns to confront… himself. And, in having done so, has absolutely no idea of how to proceed. For the correct thing, the honourable thing, is to take great offence and- He finds himself laughing.

Of all the things he’s fled from, mere battle has never been one of them. _This_ Thor doesn’t even have the words to understand the cowardice that Thor has committed: the abandoning of reality, the abdication of his duty to his people; the list feels endless.

So he laughs and finds he cannot stop. Is bent double and wheezing, while Loki stands, still as a rock, besides him. Thor daren’t look at her expression.

It takes a while to get himself under control and, when he does, he has to lift his glasses to wipe at tears that stream forth. Loki is near bone white, only two high points of colour stand stark on her cheeks while she engages in some silent standoff with Asgard’s older prince.

She doesn’t even look aside from her glairing match when she asks, “Brother, are you…?”

“I’m well,” Thor tries to reassure her. For truly, he’s not laughed like that in… too long.

His smile falls. For his humour hinges all on his people’s doom and-

“Good.” Loki pats his shoulder once, bracingly, “Now go to bed. You-” This to Thor-as-was. “I need a quick word with you.” Loki beckons sharply. If Prince Thor is startled to be ordered about so, it doesn’t show. Rather he stalks past them and on down the hall. Loki hesitates fleetingly, but then follows, and the hall around Thor suddenly feels much darker.

Watching them depart, Thor wonders which one he should worry for. Decides, knowing what he does of himself as he was and Loki as she is, that he’s still certain to have his sibling at the end of this.

Worry abated, Thor wonders whether he should head, alone and troubled, to bed or perhaps return to the taunts of Asgard’s feast. While his mind flutters between his options, his eyes drift skyward, to take in a huge mosaic assembled in the vaults. There is no Thor, no Loki, in the current rendering. Only Odin and Frigga. Which, for many centuries, it will have been.

Under the plaster and the tiles, hidden but not gone, will be Hela. Waiting.

Maybe there is yet some good he can do.

But, first, he has to determine the best location to stand in if he wants to reclaim something from the weapons vault.

#

To see her again induces a lurching, sick vertigo more rattling than any bifrost landing alone can account for. The scar bisecting Thor’s dead eye starts to throb.

“I never expected Heimdall to willingly transport anyone here.” Hela says, voice arch and mildly-disapproving. Thor decides to omit mentioning that there’s more than one way to access the bifrost, especially as, in this era, there actually isn’t. It’s good to have Stormbreaker back with him. Utterly vital to him that he be able to run his fingers over her deadly lines; to remind himself, that if he must, he should hack through his sister’s neck.

“So, tell me, warrior, who are you that you’re so keen to walk the halls of death?”

Thor tells the truth. “I’m your brother.” And then, because apparently over the years Loki’s dark humour has rubbed off on him: “Your intended replacement.”

There’s a drawn out silence. Hela on her throne sits up straighter, looking him over as one might inspect a bug. Eventually she finds, or perhaps fails to find, whatever it is she’s looking for and she sits back. Crosses her legs and lets her chin come to rest, pensively, on one hand. It’s all very regal. “Saying that I believe you, that still doesn’t address why you’re here.”

“Doesn’t it? I would have thought it was obvious.” Thor lets Stormbreaker rest, mighty head down, on the floor, and leans easily against the handle. Hopes he can hold his nerve. Tells himself he has nothing to lose. “I want something from you.”

“Oh, please, let me stop you there.” One hand is raised with perfect poise. Thor finds himself wondering, somewhat irreverently, whether she’s practiced the move in front of a mirror. “I do no resurrections of loved ones, turning back of people’s fates, or reuniting of those on opposite sides of the Vale. Well, beyond those reunions conducted in the obvious manner.”

“I don’t want you to resurrect anyone.” He wants her to resurrect everyone. Somehow Thor knows that’s not going to happen. He focusses on his quest.

“Really? Because you have the look of a man that… Well, let’s be diplomatic and say that grief seems to have shattered you somewhat. So, who was it?”

He shakes his head. “That’s not why I’m here. Truly.”

“Really? Oh, do go on then. Entertain me. What _do_ you want?”

Everything; everyone: the impossible.

“For you to come to me.” Thor says, careful to ask only for the possible. “When Odin dies. Come and talk with me.” Norns alone know that isn’t a conversation likely to go aught but ill. But even a moment’s respite on that chilly Norway fjord must count for something?

“To talk?” One brow arches in feigned startlement. She really, shockingly, does look like Loki. It’s galling to be abruptly, fleetingly fond, when all that Thor wants to feel is hatred. “Whatever for?”

“We both know father has you bound here.” Oh, she doesn’t like that he knows this. “Come to me, and we will discuss your freedom and-”

“I do not need terms dictated to me by some mewling-”

“Not terms.” Thor holds his hand up. “But rather a discussion about the largest slaughter there will ever be.” _Thanos._

She settled back. “Oh?”

He could say that name; could set in progress events that will engulf the multiverse. Instead, careful of the fragility of the timelines, Thor dares plant only breadcrumbs.

“Talk to me. When it’s time. Talk to my brother. For if there’s to be a glorious battle, wouldn’t you like to share in the victory?”

“A battle?” Does she know how hungry her face grows? “Does father know you speak of blood, little godling?”

“Odin doesn’t know everything.” Neither, for that matter, will Thor. Not when the time comes. Hopefully Hela’s curiosity will get the three of Odin’s children through his younger self’s ignorance and Loki’s fearful silence. And maybe, just maybe, things here can be different. Maybe even better. “Are you interested?”

“In what?” She leans back, face averted from him, aiming for an appearance of indifference. But for all that Hela has the look of Loki about her, she’s none of their brother’s acting. “You bring me nothing but a petty vagueness. Not even my favoured witches would approach me with prophecy so formless.”

“I will pay,” he spreads his hands, “to buy your trust in this.”

Hela’s eyes fall heavily lidded; sly. “A favour? My! You _are_ keen.”

Loki would disseminate at this juncture. Would, more to the point, have never been so reckless as to have taken this tack. But Thor can only be what he is, slow and dim though that may be. Aye, and direct. “You are my sister.”

The words want to twist around his tongue and choke him with their shapes. There are only four words he must say and so he manages, somehow, to look at she who will slaughter them, and claim her non-the-less.

It seems to give Hela pause for thought. Thor time for hope.

Time for doubt too. For what if she claims him in return? Claims him and says that his life must be forfeit to convince her of his honest intentions?

Thor imagines his fate. In his mind’s eye he sees Loki in Asgard-as-was. Sees her in their elegant-basic accommodation. Rooms fit only for troublesome guests yet far grander than anything they’ve held since- Well, _since_.

Loki paces, for she is vexed at Thor’s absence. Maybe she is even hurt, insulted by the younger Prince Thor’s true assertion that her kin is less than he should be. Or maybe she is in trouble, the sharp of her tongue having caused the usual harm when her lies and her tricks catch up to her.

At some point she will stop being impatient. She will know something to be wrong. What she’ll do then – tear Asgard apart looking for him; return to the Guardians, shrink in on herself in abandoned bitterness – Thor cannot predict.

Does not want to predict.

“A price you say? That’s what you’ll pay?” Hela’s leaning forward, her smile that of a cat with the cream.

Thor thinks of Loki; abandoned. Then he thinks of Loki again. Of Hela, of Ragnarok. Thanos. He nods. “My word as my bond.”

“I’m not interested in your word. I am, however, very interested in just what it is that you’re hiding behind your mysterious dark glasses.”

It’s a little enough thing; Thor removes them.

Hela rises. Comes over. Cups his cheek much as Loki would, though Thor’s skin has never crawled at the touch of his sibling. Tilts his head this way and that.

Like a mindless doll, Thor lets her do as she will.

“Your eye.” She says at length. “I will have it.”

Again? Does she somehow know that she will-

Thor is cold; feels sick. However these sensations are little more than the standard background of his life now. Over it all, he feels a strange and certain type of floating. For he will live to see Loki again, if this one thing is all she wishes.

Well, maybe not _see_ Loki.

He takes his dinning dagger; raising it to his living eye.

“No.” Hela catches his wrist. “I’m not so cruel as that, brother. The other one.”

Confused, Thor lowers his blade. Raises his hand. Plucks out the mechanical device.

Hela holds out her hand. “Pass me your eye, He-Who-Would-Replace-Me.”

“I’ve lived without it before.” He cautions, handing it over. He won’t have her say she’s been cheated on a technicality. Not when, technically, he _is_ cheating her. For he is carrying consequences that he feels too numb to fear the harm of for the possibility of benefitting a younger, more innocent version of the Odinsons.

“Oh, you’ll have it back, soon enough. Though not as it once was.” Hela’s smile is… For a moment Thor thinks it poisonous, it is so bitter. Yet, that’s not the full extent of it. Only by regarding, carefully, her Loki-like face, does Thor find that he can, with effort, place that expression. Distrust, with a healthy-dose of anticipation of betrayal.

She expects him to double-cross her.

Their gazes lock, but it is she who looks down. Inspects his eye. Turns it briefly in her hands, Seidr glittering between her fingers. Then she hands it back. “If you wear this... If you wear this always; then I will talk with you when next we meet.”

Thor, looking at the cursed object in his palm and wonders what will happen when he puts it in. He looks at his sister. Not his sister; an alternative version of her. “No. Too much could happen or change.” His pulse is pounding in his veins. How close can he risk it? “If I put this in, you must swear to speak, and fairly!, to the leader of Asgard, whomever that might be after father’s death.”

He thinks that she might balk at this, smelling a rat in the words that are so unlike his own. Save that for all that she’s his sister, she’s a stranger to him and his ways. Instead of suspicion she only smiles and, in smiling, displays a look of nostalgia. “My, but how you sound like our father! Go on then. It’s agreed. Now wear my eye.”

Thor does. There is, amazingly enough, exactly no noticeable effect. His dead eye remains much as it always was; a buzzing, ever-present annoyance that none-the-less is better than an aching void. Thor blinks a few times, wondering if the effects will be delayed.

Hela nods. “Well then. We are done here.”

“Aye. So we are.” Thor raises Stormbreaker; lets her take him home.

Hela, what he’s done with Hela, it’s not much of a change to the timeline. Can hardly win them a chance. Barely any of a chance at all. Yet, maybe it will be enough?

#

Asgard’s not his home. Not this Asgard and maybe not any Asgard. Not now. That place in his heart where home once existed broke as Asgard shattered and there’s nowhere in his soul now that can take a replacement.

He remembers this about himself, about his ‘home’, as soon as he sets foot in the eternal realm. He’d thought to return to one of the quieter parts of the city; a small, mostly-forgotten walled garden where he and Sif used to… But, that was before they grew up and, in growing, found they fit together differently than they had supposed; better in life and war, worse in love.

His Sif is dead, but there’s a girl, barely yet old enough to lay claim to womanhood, in the garden. She’s… let’s call it practicing. Thor fights not to smile.

Fights not to weep.

Finds himself with a spear at this throat. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

Her face is wavery though the blur of his tears, but, more than that, it’s stained as red as fire, from the light of numbers that hover over her brow. A date he’ll die knowing.

Now he understands what Hela’s cursed him with. Why she’d seemed to content to make their bargain. She’d thought she held a trick to break him. But to have him bear witness to the death dates of those he sees; that’s far too little, far too late. Truly, it must have seemed a cruel challenge to her, not realizing she’s only showing him a truth he already knowns.

He’d thought, in those last seconds together, that maybe she’d been warming to him, as a wronged sister might soften towards a brother reaching for reconciliation.

He’d been a fool.

Someone slaps him.

“I asked you a question!” Sif’s always been quick to temper; Thor well remembers it, yet for all that remembering had forgotten that her temper long proceeded her ability, on the field, to defend it. “Speak or begone.”

She’s the childish form of one of his oldest friends. A woman he has loved, in one way or another, for much of his life. One he has never had the privilege of firing a funeral boat for. He should have words of wisdom – soothing optimistic nothings – to guide her on her way. For it’s only centuries hence that’s she’ll open up to him, finally confident in her position besides the Warriors Three, and admit to how she struggles in these, her learning days. That, at this time, she feels utterly alone.

He hasn’t the slightest idea what to say to her.

“Well? Are you mocking me?”

Thor bows, because it’s that or quite possibly get a fist to his mouth. “My apologies, my lady. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He could claim a need for solitude, but then, so too could Sif. “I will depart.”

He leaves, and tells the hole it drives through his heart that it’s the only action he can take. For it’s the only action a coward would take.

Had he thought a chance to turn aside Hela’s rage might redeem him as a hero? Was that what drove his foolish journey? That such impassioned action might remind him how to be who he once was?

But there was no passion in his action, only calculation. And at it’s end, all that remains is all he’s ever been: a bitter, broken man, who sees death wherever he goes.

Even Hela’s curse can’t worsen his reality. Thor already knows the numbers he’s failed; that every face he sees is one he’ll let down.

Indeed, although wherever he walks that morning there are numbers, haunting and identical, over the brows of Asgard’s citizens, to see such an indisputable measure of what is to be is… almost reassuring.

Besides, terrible as it is to look on a doom he’s already seen, far worse awaits him if he returns to their guest hall. For there Loki waits.

Thor finds a pub and sits, in the sunlight, on the bench for old men. Maybe if he just stays here long enough…?

The faces around him – lined and old – hold different dates to those he’s seen reflected back from every other being on Asgard. Closer dates. For these deaths will be wrought not by Hela and Thanos, but by time.

It’s disquieting to realize that he’s looking at those who will not die in valiant battle, striving to reach Valhalla, but whom will fade and fall away, down into his sister’s halls.

#

Thor finally girds himself to return to his room and learn the date of his sibling’s death, yet finds himself waylaid, again, in an illusioned bubble.

“This is getting to be a habit.” But he doesn’t turn. Nothing can persuade him to look at Loki when he’s cursed as he is.

Bile surges at this merest thought of Loki’s red-lit face, and he almost loses control of his stomach, for _what had he been thinking?_ There’s _no way_ , he can look on the date of Loki’s death.

Yet what else can he do? Is he seriously planning to spend the rest of his life with his eyes closed around Loki? Or just the rest of Loki’s life?

“Is it becoming so?” Loki’s voice feigns at boredom, yet carries something more excitable beneath.

“It is.” Thor looks at his hands; even under his sibling’s disguise, they are thick and sturdy; muscled and calloused and plump all in strange contrast to one another. They don’t look like his and yet they are; a dissonance stretching back further than just this madcap idea of Rocket and Loki’s.

He should turn to face Loki, for to keep ones back to royalty is beyond improper.

“What do you want now, my prince?” He doesn’t turn. He’s already been marked out as a coward; there’s no need to fight gossip’s label.

“Would you ever believe that _someone_ has broken into my father’s weapon vault?”

“Ah.” His thoughts seem to decouple from the spin that Hela’s put them in and start flowing clearly again. How does Loki always manage to change the focus of his thoughts so sharply?

Stormbreaker is never heavy, not to Thor, but for once he’s well aware of the heft of her across his back. “Would you believe me if I said that I _didn’t_?” Summoning her can hardly be considered in the same class of crime as breaking in to-

“Rather a lot of mess was left.”

Thor looks at his hands. His back feels exposed, an endless stretch of skin and vulnerable battleaxe. Anyone could decide to take her and-

He wants to beat himself for his own folly. What had he been thinking?

“Quite.” Loki seems to have settled on finding the whole situation amusing. “You have even less subtlety than my _wonderful brother_ if you think no one will notice you wandering about bearing that.”

“I’ll…” Thor stops. He’s not certain what he’ll do. Mjolnir had been distinctive. Stormbreaker is not only that, but immense. Maybe if he removes and re-drapes his cloak appropriately?

“Let me.” Loki says, voice closer to Thor’s back. There’s the strange sensation of someone touching something that’s touching Thor; for that’s exactly what’s happening. Loki’s running a light touch over the weapon. He half expects the youth to comment on her; on the strangeness of the design of the wood that makes her handle or perhaps that her Uru head is exquisite. All Loki says is: “I hate to owe people and, as it’s nice not to bleed as I eat, I most definitely owe you.”

“You owe me nothing.” Thor’s turned to face Loki, sincere and needing to impress this on the boy, before he remembers why they’re turned thus. He would close his eyes, but it’s already too late. Too late and utterly unnecessary.

He had feared to see Loki’s doom. But Loki, as ever, is an enigma. The number hovering over his head skips from moment to moment, flickering and blurring as it rises then falls more quickly even than Loki talks.

Thor feels something inside of him settle into ease.

Ease is the exact opposite of how Loki looks. “I wanted to thank you.” He gets it all out in one rush. His eyes dart left and right. It crosses Thor’s mind that, even protected by the invisibility glamour, Loki is ashamed to be in his company. Well, there are consequences to being seen to be without honour in Odin’s halls. So be it. “Let me do so.”

Thor bows his head in acquiescence. Waits for Loki’s magic to settle over him in a long-familiar shimmer.

Instead Loki, hand raised and fingers held in the start of a spell-shape, is paused, frowning. Slowly, his head turns; lowers. Thor tries to work out where he’s looking, then wonders why he needed to even think the question. Loki’s looking at Thor’s wrist; the one where female-Loki’s woven bracelets most definitely shouldn’t be visible to others.

But Loki is also Loki and like calls to like.

As with Stormbreaker, it’s rather too late to try to hide the obvious. “It’s a long story.”

“Did I-?” But then Loki shakes his head. “That’s so _strange_.” And, asked straight to Thor, as though it wasn’t the strangest question in the universe: “Did my mother make that for you?”

“Mother?” Thor is bewildered; for though she’s taught Loki much, Frigga’s Seidr carries a touch that is most definitely her own; even Thor can tell the difference. To Loki the change must be utterly…

“I know I’m bastard-born.” Loki whispers, face averted as though, even should such a statement be true and even should such a statement deserve shame, that somehow that shame would be his.

It’s like the floor has vanished below Thor. As though _he_ were the one falling from the ragged end of the bifrost. “I- You- What?”

Loki’s arms are folded around himself, crossed low as though to protect his vulnerable belly. “Mother – Queen Frigga – she didn’t go into confinement with me.” Then his gaze flashes angry as he looks up to Thor. “It’s a well enough known fact, if you’ve the whit to listen to gossip. And for that weaving you wear to taste so closely to my magic, then you must know…”

“I.” Honeyed words have never been Thor’s strength. He struggles to master them. Then, gently, as if touching a fracturing glasswork, he lets his hand come to rest on Loki’s shoulder instead.

Knowing what he does, it seems cruel to tell _this_ Loki not to listen to such lies. Yet, to leave him hurting? It’s doubly impossible with Loki’s eyes, turned, suddenly expectantly, to him. For against all odds, it appears as though Loki expects this disreputable old has-been to show him the truth.

How ever does Loki cope with keeping all of his secrets close? It would drive Thor to madness!

“I won’t speak on what you fear,” Thor finally says, hoping Loki will take that as a statement of ignorance rather than agreement. Loki’s face turns spiteful; Thor doesn’t let him get as far as voicing actual words. “ _Listen_ to me! I can’t talk about that. But I can tell you that we can’t control our parentage. No one can. We can only control the manner of person we become.”

Loki’s spite has softened, but Thor fears it’s all turned inwards when he says, “We’re all our own fault? Well _that’s_ a particular type of dreadful.”

“It’s not dreadful at all. It’s _good_ to be able to define ourselves; to choose the type of person we wish to be and then work to become that. It’s important.”

“And you?” Loki’s smile turns cruel. Is Thor only imagining that Loki’s trying to hide his hurt? “Is this-“ a prod to Thor’s belly “-the manner of person you decided to become?”

Thor’s smile turns from fondness. He feels it happen. It’s washed away by a rising tide of pain and guilt and bile and he is yet helpless to control that change. Does maybe Loki have a point and-

But Thor has lived his days, _all_ of them, choosing as best as he can to be who he should be and _should have gone for the head_ or not, that’s all one can do. So yes, to answer the question posed by Loki, Thor’s chosen who he has become. For there were surely other paths he could have taken: capitulation to Hela; remaining on Sakaar to overthrow the Grandmaster; giving up on the world and never facing down Thanos; _becoming_ Thanos.

Because he’d be lying to deny the urge; there when he took Thanos’s head; to just carry on killing. To use the dead he made to bury the dead he mourned.

“You’re smiling.” Loki sounds accusing.

Thor is surprised to realize that, yes, he is smiling. “You’re right; I did choose this. Because it is better than the alternatives I could have become.” And, in response to Loki’s deeply sceptical look: “I said we can control ourselves, I never said we can control the fate the Norns deal us.” More’s the pity.

Loki shakes his head. “You’re a fool.”

“Maybe. Still, will you…?” Thor gestures over his shoulder to Stormbreaker. Loki snaps his fingers; Thor just has to trust that was the spell. “About your birth-“

But Loki, mercurial as ever, holds up a hand to stop him. “You already said you’d tell me nothing. As I am, all I can hope for is to win my father’s approval.” That look turns reflective. “Yet it is mother – a woman my father apparently cuckooed – who is the one who seems to care for me.” A smile, darker than Thor likes to think of his baby brother wearing: “If I didn’t know I was illegitimate by her not bearing me, I should have assumed it was father who had been passed over. Certainly it would fit facts better.”

Facts as Loki knows them.

Thor gives Loki’s shoulder one last squeeze. There doesn’t seem more that he can say.

When Thor gets back to the guest room, _his_ Loki’s absent.

#

On waking, too early, the next morning, heart beating with horrors, skin slick with sweat, Thor thinks that Loki’s still not returned. Then he realizes he can hear faint splashing from the bathing chamber. Rising, he makes his way over to the doorway; for there are things which they must discuss. Or, rather, that is his intention; what he sees stops him.

Loki, looking up from where she’s tending herself by a shallow basin, says, “You look dreadful.” She almost appears worried by that.

“I was about to say the same of you.” But what he _wants_ to say, is ‘who did this to you?’ for Loki’s lip is split. The blood smeared there reminds Thor hauntingly of the stitches that had crossed his other brother’s mouth, but this Loki is smirking, jubilant. Thor wonders whether he’ll ever get the full story of the incident and, in the eventuality that Loki is willing to talk of it, whether he’ll ever be allowed to forget about it.

“Are you okay?” He asks because he cannot not ask. It’s such a primal, overwhelming urge, that even the relief of seeing _this_ Loki respond to his new, Hela-approved curse in much the same manner as _that_ Loki had is lost beneath the flood.

“Please have a care of the door trimmings. I know that we’re not planning to stay, but it’s probably better if the guards don’t find them splintered before we come to depart.

Thor releases his grip with a jerk, “Sorry.”

“I don’t think the door can hear you.” Loki turns back to the water; sketches a rune in green light over it. The light shimmers slightly and sinks into the water. Yet whatever it’s meant to do, Thor couldn’t say, for when Loki submerges her scraped hands, there’s no miraculous cure of the harm.

“Have you been _punching_ people?” Is that better or worse than people punching _her_?

Loki, face still turned to her task, smiles, a gesture so slight Thor barely catches the upturn of her lips. “And I _could_ go asking you what you’ve been up to with my younger self, but then, that’s rather obvious isn’t it?”

Thor refuses to be ashamed to spending time with Loki. Least of all to Loki herself. “He helped me hide Stormbreaker.”

“ _Badly_.” Loki grimaces. “I really was the most unbelievably conceited idiot back then, wasn’t I? The enchantment was already beginning to shred; Heimdall could have seen.”

“You’ve fixed it, of course.” It’s not a question; Loki’s still too conceited to ‘fail’.

“At least _I_ grew out of being an idiot. Pity the same can’t be said for you. What, _exactly_ , were you thinking of when you took _that_ back?” Loki makes an emphatic gesture to Stormbreaker, where she’s poking out from under the bed.

It’s the perfect time to confess to his rather reckless encounter with Hela. Thor opens his mouth; draws breath. Loki’s going to be furious.

Thor closes his mouth.

Loki’s going to be furious; possibly rightly so. Thor’s effectively cursed himself with some ridiculous prescience as to the expiration date of every sentient being they stumble across. Because as much as Thor would like to think that the curse is limited to Asgardians, that hope’s been scuppered by the ever-changing numbers above Loki’s forehead.

She’ll tell Thor to remove it. Either the curse itself, or, if that’s not possible, then the eye.

Thor can live with being half-blind; he’s done it before. What he can’t live with is being forsworn; not when so much hangs in the balance. Not if there’s even the slightest slither of a possibility that Hela can reach between the multiverses and _know_ he’s broken his word.

After all, if Loki can have her knowledge as to when to jump between multiverses and how, then why not their older, crazier sister?

_Norns! What_ has _he done?_

He- His mind stutters over the moment. Over his reckless, stupid, _thoughtless _decision to go to Hela. Over Hela’s smile. Over the bodies the littered across Asgard and-__

____

____

"Thor!” Loki’s voice is sharp. “Thor! Look at me." 

There are hands, cool and water wet, on his cheeks. There’s his name in the air. The scent of the oils Loki smooths through her hair and- 

He blinks. 

Realizes that he’s sitting on the side of the bath; Loki kneeling before him and apparently trying to calm him down. 

Second time in how many days? Oh Norns, but it’s getting worse again! 

“I’m s-” 

Loki’s fingers cover his lips. “Hush.” A kiss presses against his brow. “ _I’m_ the one that’s sorry. I didn’t mean it. I don’t think that you’re an idiot.” Her eyes are never so sincere as when she lies. 

“It’s okay.” Thor forces the words past lips gone numb and trembling. “But I think I’m just going to lie down for a bit.” 

“I can-“ 

But Thor waves Loki away. He needs time alone with this truth he’s hiding. It clogs up his throat and crawls under his skin; begging and howling that he utter it to his sibling. He needs some time to learn how to sit on it. Time to stop feeling sick with it. 

#

Morning comes and morning goes. The sun shifts shadows across their borrowed room. Loki, done with whatever she’s been upto in the bathroom, looks in on him; comes over to sooth his coverlet under his chin, her hand gentle; and then she goes out on her business. Thor closes his eyes after she leaves, but he does not sleep. 

Noon comes and, with it, the guard bearing lunch. The guard will die by Hela’s hand. By Thor’s complacency. He reads it clear in the number across the guard’s face. He doesn’t eat the offerings. 

The sun is sinking down, beams of gold as heady as any decoration in the realm, when he finally finds the strength to face himself. The walks and arcades are never so short as now, when he wants to linger; to delay. 

But delaying is a concession for the weak. He deserves no such mercy for himself. 

Instead he goes to the great hall; listens to Odin’s announcement. Hears the cheers and the banging of mugs. For all that two days ago Odin had been adamant Asgard would not set forth to deal with this dragon, now an agreement has been reached and all is different. Is this the manner of king Thor would have, in time, himself become? 

Below Odin’s podium, the leader of the purple robes – and Thor doesn’t even know their _species_ ; what had Loki called them? Xio? Zio? Shio? – is managing to look both relieved and deeply uncertain at the same time. 

A death date barely two weeks hence is emblazed across its forehead. 

The pronouncement leads to speeches that are greeted with exuberant celebration. Toasts are made and vows firmly exchanged. Yet, gathered around Odin’s throne, each of those beings has but two weeks to live. Just what manner of monstrous dragon is it? 

“You’re not drinking!” While he’s remained seated, the table around Thor has filled up much as the rest of the hall has. Yet for all of the faces present, still more are missing: Thor’s younger self, both Lokis, their mother. “You should celebrate! Tomorrow we will go forth and be heroes!” 

Thor looks at his mug. Looks at that troubled, alien leader. Finds himself wondering what hopes and dreams the being has had to sign over to Odin just to ensure their people will live. 

And for what? Will the indigo aliens actually survive? If the dragon were their sole challenge, surely the Allfather’s decision to vanquish the dragon should have lengthened the span of their days, yet Hela’s curse says otherwise. 

What if… what if something _else_ is to befall them? What if the Allfather, for some strange reason, changes his mind before the morning comes? Or perhaps the dragon fights back, slowly obliterating, over the next twelve days, the planet these beings dwell on? Or maybe even that whoever’s backing the deal these beings have with the Allfather collects their payment with some unanticipated brutality? 

There is only one life for them. One life and then one death with no reboot. And Thor is expected to let this be? 

He stands. “I have somewhere to be.” 

Someone tries to call him back. “Leave him,” He hears Urt of Stenton say. “He’s no Volstagg. _He’ll_ not venture out in the morrow.” 

# 

Later. Well. Later things will be different. For starters, Thor will remember just how arrogant he can be when he’s certain that he’s correct. For he actually had the gall to think that he held the capacity to change the universe. 

Entering the great hall as dawn blushes her way over the horizon, Thor is met by the clamour of warriors preparing for battle. They are all noise and movement and, in between them, the purple-robed go almost unremarkable. 

Their expatriation date, as clear as any marker in a video game, is exactly as it was when Thor left the night before. 

Thor lowers himself back to the feast table, careful to knock nothing with the concealed Stormbreaker, and picks up his flagon. It’s immutable; all the same as ever it is. The same as yesterday. The same as it will be, centuries from now, when Hela- 

But it’s also different. Around Thor, people come and go, their heads now stamped with a date he knows too well; one visible to him alone. It turns his belly and he cannot touch the morning feast. Instead he sits; sits and watches. 

Broods. 

As he sits there, he watches the warriors assemble. Urt passes Thor to join their gathering, but he doesn’t spare a greeting for the Friggason; doesn’t nod to the coward. Doesn’t realise what a mercy he grants Thor with his indifference. 

The gathered warriors laugh and josh; pushing at one another and generally acting up as they discuss how they must prepare to do battle with a dragon fit to rival any of Mulspelheim. Tyr will lead them apparently, for Odin is too important to risk so lightly. But the _other_ Thor will be present, too: their young prince out raiding with them. Rumour and gossip flow back and forth, but Thor keeps on being distracted by the numbers he sees. 

They leave a sick feeling in the pit of his belly. All these people he’s failed. 

“Can I get you some more?” A serving girl comes to stop before him. The number above her head is no different from any others; neither higher nor lower. Is it petty of Thor to be heart-sick that there’s no being here that won’t die while he is helpless to intercede? 

“More mead?” She repeats, voice going softer, rather than hard and impatient. Thor looks more closely at her, but cannot place her face. It leaves him wondering who among her kin is as haunted as he, that she has learned such kindness. Or maybe Thor’s being morose and she is imply kind by nature. 

“No,” he says, for in truth, he should be cutting down. While that’s a resolve that’s rather fallen by the way-side since arriving back in Asgard and, well, since all of everything that he’s seen here, it’s still a resolve he should attempt to resurrect. “Do you have tea from the Iktian leaf?” 

For if he’s to be punished by the haunting familiarity of all that he has lost, then should he not be permitted to enjoy some small portion of it? 

She smiles and curtseys. “I’ll be right back.” 

Its only after she’s gone that Thor realizes she didn’t ask whether he was joining the hunting party; didn’t offer him a way to transport the drink. Maybe she assumes he’ll head over when he’d good and ready. 

__Well, he’s not going._ _

__Neither’s anyone else. They just don’t realise it yet._ _

__Maybe stopping the dragon hunt isn’t enough. Are the Norns more determined than he? Or maybe he was on the right track the previous day in worrying about the longer term implications and so he needs to stop this crisis more completely? Maybe then the numbers he sees will shift; the lives will lengthen; and he’ll have managed to save someone._ _

__He catches the purple-robed leader’s eye. Very slowly, very carefully, he lifts a fold in his cloak. The being, confused, follows Thor’s gesture. Catches glimpse of what lies within. Darts a look, part-awed, part-horrified, at Thor. Then they’re crossing the hall towards him with steps that almost run._ _

__A few heads turn, but then turn away again. Uninterested, in a way that once Thor would have thought noble, in the reason for their quest now that they have the scent of glory before them._ _

__“Is that-?” The leader, thankfully, is quiet and manages to look at Thor not the bundle he holds._ _

__“Aye.” Thor agrees. “It’s done.”_ _

__Gratitude washes over the alien’s features. Thor wishes such delight could touch him, but the only change he’d hoped to see – an increase in that span of time the being will yet live – remains stubbornly as was. Clearly he’s not yet done enough. Why had he expected otherwise? Had he truly thought that he could be a hero again?_ _

__His vision shimmers, but Thor fights not to cry. He should have known it to be a futile quest._ _

__“And the monster?” There’s a hush to the leader’s voice. Their eyes flicker uncertainly towards Odin’s great throne – empty at this early stage in the preparation – and Thor cannot fault the being for its suspicion. To have come seeking aid and yet found only barter? To have hoped for haste and yet to have met delay? And now this; a clandestine secret at the heart of Asgard…._ _

__Still the dragon, at least, may be some good Thor has done. “It’s gone.” Transported through to Mulspelheim with relatively little harm to either the creature or Thor himself. “And you needn’t pay an extermination fee where there’s no pest to be obliterated. I’m sure you have better uses for your leverage, whatever it might prove to be, than filling Odin’s vault.”_ _

__It’s not like that vault will last out the millennium, anyhow._ _

Thor thinks that the leader will say more, but instead, after a strangely intent moment of _observing_ Thor more closely than he’s keen on, the alien nods. They gesture to Thor’s burden. “And that?” 

__Thor hands it over. “So you can research its protection lest it return.” Though he’s sure enough that it won’t. What would a creature of fire and heat want with a realm of earth and rock? “I suggest you and yours leave. There’s going to be a very angry Allfather here soon.”_ _

__“I-“ The leader seems overwhelmed. Then, decisive, they take thin golden loops from their upper arm; sliding them free and holding them out to Thor. Just as, mere days before, they had to Odin._ _

Thor recoils. “I didn’t- I don’t-“ None of this has ever been about _payment_. 

__Maybe the leader understands or maybe not, for the look that Thor’s given is determined. “For the healer. Your wife; sister; boss? In thanks.”_ _

__Well, Loki would certainly like that last title. “No.” Thor pushes the offering back. Despite Thor’s best effort the alien moves like water; almost flowing out of his grip. Somehow he’s left holding the bangles._ _

__“In friendship.” The alien says firmly._ _

Thor should fight. Only he’s tired. Worse than that, he recognizes the leader’s look; the need to return _something_ though you know you have nothing of relative value to give. Asgard’s halls carry an eon’s collected gold. The leader’s bangles, rich though they may be on their home world, are nothing to that. 

__Thor closes his hand over the shimmer. “Go then, and go well, friend.” There will not be much time for the beings to depart. Heimdall will have seen all. It’s time now for Thor to collect his sibling and for them to flee this timeline. Hopefully Loki’s done with both her mission and her mischief._ _

__Though at least she’ll like the baubles; gold has always caught her eye._ _

__#_ _

__He’s on his feet, tea in hand, heading for their guest rooms – and thence where, if Loki isn’t waiting for him? – when the doors to the great hall are pulled open; the heralds sliding into position so smoothly that only centuries experience with them causes Thor to notice their actions._ _

__What he sees there is… himself._ _

__Younger, of course. And without that blurred number that Hela’s ‘gifted’ him with observing over every other head. Clearly he’s not meant to be blessed with the foretelling of his own demise and the spell’s clever enough to recognize a loophole when it sees one._ _

__Young Thor is sporting a black eye._ _

__True, it’s somewhat faded. Thor can’t remember the last time he’d bruised. Maybe Thanos. Definitely Hela. There had been other things on his mind both times._ _

__He realizes that he’s stumbled to a stop._ _

His younger self’s eyes meet his and Thor swears that there’s a _knowing_ in them. Thor has an instant to experience the strange lurching feeling that, even though he hasn’t lived through the other side of this moment, he knows _exactly_ where his younger self got that bruise; where Loki got her split lip. Then he remembers himself. Bows to Asgard’s prince, and leaves the hall. Tries to. It’s vexing to be stopped by armed guards again and in such quick succession upon the last occasion. 

The guards have Loki, _Thor’s_ Loki, with them. 

And behind them, Odin and _Heimdall_. 

__“Damn.” This is going from bad to worse._ _

Young Loki’s trailing along, of course. Thor should have known there’d be no way this trip was going to end easily. Next time Loki and Rocket propose multiverses, Thor’s going to veto it. Assuming that he’s _allowed_ to veto things. Voting can be pesky, and even a democracy of nine can be challenging to manage. 

__The indigo-robed leader is also with the group, although at least their attendants are gone. Thor wonders if they’ve made it both too and through the bifrost. Whether Heimdall let them pass before coming here._ _

__Wonders what Heimdall thought of that; of everything._ _

__“Friggason.” Odin booms, staring down at Thor. Loki, her back turned to this alternate of their father, makes a small grimace in apology. As though Thor isn’t used to Loki’s wrong-doings being pinned on him._ _

__“My! Look at the time,” Loki’s slight hand is slipped into Thor’s as she tries to tug him past Odin. “I suspect that we’ve outstayed our welcome, though it’s been lovely to visit.” Loki’s gaze is weary if not quite nervous._ _

__Loki still thinks this is about library books._ _

__“I welcomed you into my hall!”_ _

__“Yes,” Loki agrees rapidly. “And we’ve had a delightful-“_ _

“I welcome you in and you _conspire_ against me.” 

__Thor barely remembers pushing Loki behind himself. If this is going to play out the way that he fears… “There has been no conspiracy.” There most definitely has been, even if it’s only the conspiracy of Thor himself._ _

__“Ah.” Loki says, and then completely misses the point Odin’s trying to make. “I know I might have broken into the library earlier. However, it’s all entirely innocent. I tend to wander in my dreams.” And then, in a clear and transparent attempt to deflect everything: “Brother, didn’t you miss me last night and report my disappearance to the guards?”_ _

__Thor shrugs. “I’m afraid you weren’t the only one out and about last night.”_ _

__“I wasn’t-?” Loki’s voice is brittle. Thor can see the rapid calculation in her eyes. “Oh. How many times have I told you to leave the plans to me?”_ _

“You owe me recompense, _Friggason_ , for your treason.” 

__“Not treason.” Thor says. “Apparently the dragon just left.”_ _

__“Just-“ Heimdall raises an eyebrow “-left?”_ _

Maybe Loki has a point, and Thor needs to get better at ‘sneaky’. He should be contrite, maybe even fearful. Thor smiles, because he’s happy, and permits himself a sip of his tea as a reward for a job well done. 

Then promptly spits his tea everywhere when seeing the changed number above the alien leader’s head. Thankfully, at the other end of the hall, Tyr and his warriors are having similar reactions to being told that their services are no longer needed; their bounty forfeit; and the current plan for military action overtaken by events. 

“So you _admit_ to stealing our hunt!” Is it only Hela’s words that make so plain to Thor the parallels in theatrics between his father and his sibling? 

Thor wants to be angry; wants to be righteous. Yet standing there, watching someone who could be – who _has been_ – his father state his opinion on his endeavour? It takes Thor a while to place the cold, empty feeling: he’s sad. 

“We’re leaving now.” He makes certain that his arm is firm around Loki. Because it’s certain people will try to stop them. It doesn’t matter; Thor only has to get far enough away to activate the bifrost without harming others. And it must be time to leave, for Loki says she made it into the library last night, and so- 

He’s busy calculating directions and spaces; suitable areas and timeframes and- 

The slap catches him by surprise. He actually staggers, only Loki’s familiar form steadying him. 

He’s got his hand to his cheek before he recognizes the action for what it is: that Odin, enraged at the disrespect, has struck him. 

Only the forsworn are struck with such disrespect. 

Thor lowers his hand. As he does, he’s aware of that he’s holding the shattered remnants of his glasses. The world feels brighter without them. 

“Well? Have you nothing to say, thief?” Yet it’s not Odin’s rage that Thor looks at, but rather the young Loki. 

He looks stricken; frightened. For Friggason, charged with treason, or for himself, to be left without council? Regardless, Thor never wants Loki to be afraid. 

But there is nothing Thor can say to refute Odin. For, truly, he is foresworn: he once gave his binding word to hold Asgard safe. In this he has failed Asgard utterly. 

A slap is nothing to his failures. He should turn his back on the incident and leave. 

Thor hesitates, looking at Prince Loki, and finds he cannot turn to go. For who will watch over him with Thor gone? Who will keep him safe and show him that there are better goals in Asgard than the mindless drive for supremacy? Or show him love, when even his worst fears about his lineage are overshadowed by the truth? 

Female-Loki’s hand finds his. “Stop over-playing the big brother role; he’s got his own. You’re mine.” 

He isn’t hers. Not really. Thor’s stolen her from another multiverse. Not that he’s giving her back. 

He only has her because, on the New Statesman, Thanos- Thor’s hands in hers are shaking. And, looking at the Odinsons as once they were, Thor’s struck again by the horror of it: that his brother is dead; that he watched on and couldn’t manage to save him. 

“Brother.” Loki’s voice is soft, gentle. The voice she uses when Thor wakes screaming. “We have people to save.” 

Twelve billion lives. Or Loki. 

He reaches into his tunic. Pulls out a dragon scale; one of the only pair he kept. Hands it to Loki-as-will-be. It’s nothing compared to the failures he – the alternative him – will offer his sibling. But, maybe as token of friendship? 

Then he raises Stormbreaker where he stands. Reaches out to the pathways and rainbows. His sibling is safely against his side and is coming with him, while Odin and Heimdall alike are both more than capable of getting out of the way. The last thing he sees is Prince Loki, staring at the dragon scale. 

# 

“So. Do I get one of those?” 

Loki is safe and living. Breathing in the circle of Thor’s arms. Thor has to remember that. He lets his head sink down to rest against her’s. In front of him, an ever-changing number flickers across Loki’s face. Is it Thor’s imagination, or do the numbers seem higher than is usual? 

Thor fears he’s found an addictive new way of keeping score. He closes his eyes, because he feels sick and dizzy; too many things are going on and all of them are occurring at once. 

Loki’s arms are wonderful around him. 

We should go back,” he tells her, strands of her hair sticking to his lips as he forms the words. “Use those spells. Save people.” Because surely that’s what he’s meant to be doing? The greater good, not just the betterment of his sibling? 

Loki just presses her lips to Thor’s temple; wordless support. 

After a time, when Thor thinks that maybe he can hold the world steady, he draws back just enough to reach into his tunic again. Takes the gold bangles, and slips them onto Loki’s thin wrists. Then pulls out the other prize. “Apparently they’re imbued with many mystical properties.” 

Loki smiles. Curls the scale up in one of her pocket dimensions. Steps in close and says, “Let’s go home.” 

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked my tale, please let me know. Comments and kudos are _almost_ as motivating as coffee.
> 
> I’ll be posting a short interlude later.


End file.
